Corona modeler Brockmann: "Omicron wave will reach maximum in the next few days"

The physicist and corona modeler Dirk Brockmann expects that the peak of the omicron wave will soon be reached.

"The course of this omicron wave is now peaking, and we expect that the maximum will then be reached in the next few days," said the professor at Berlin's Humboldt University on Friday morning on Deutschlandfunk.

Brockmann pointed out that Omicron has a classic course that is reminiscent of other corona waves.

After exponential growth, you can see “that the increase is slowly declining.

This means that the numbers are still increasing, but they are decreasing”.

According to his forecasts, the maximum was reached in mid-February, said the physicist, who models infectious diseases.

Regarding possible loosening, he said that it would be possible soon, but caution was advised.

"If you look at the dynamics of this pandemic, you know to be patient until the numbers come back down."

Therefore, politicians should not “relax into the falling number of cases, because that only delays them”.

In the past it has been seen that the pandemic has always been good for surprises.

The seven-day incidence of new corona infections meanwhile reached another high.

According to the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), it was 1472.2 nationwide this Friday morning.

The day before it was 1465.4, a week ago it was 1349.5.

The incidence quantifies the number of new infections per 100,000 inhabitants over a period of seven days.

As the RKI announced, citing data from the health authorities, the number of new infections within 24 hours was 240,172 – after 247,862 the day before and 248,838 a week ago.

This was the first week-on-week decline since the beginning of the year.

However, the figures are only of limited significance.

Experts assume a high number of cases that are not recorded in the RKI data.

Test capacities and health authorities are at the limit in many places, contacts are only traced to a limited extent.

In addition, the planned prioritization of PCR tests is likely to increase the number of people who no longer have their infection confirmed by a PCR test - so that it is not included in the official statistics.

Again more than 200 deaths

In addition, 226 other deaths related to the corona virus were recorded on Friday.

The total number of registered deaths infected with the Sars-CoV-2 virus in Germany is now 119,679.

According to the RKI, the health authorities have recorded a total of 12,009,712 cases of infection since the beginning of the pandemic.

The institute puts the number of people who have recovered from corona disease in Germany at around 8,597,300.

In November, the federal and state governments had defined the so-called hospitalization incidence as the decisive benchmark for tightening or relaxing the corona measures.

This value indicates how many people per 100,000 inhabitants are hospitalized within seven days because of a corona infection.

According to the current RKI report, the hospitalization incidence on Thursday was 6.23 nationwide.

Omicron Wave is losing speed

According to the latest RKI weekly report on Thursday, the increase in the number of cases is also slowing down.

They grew just 14 percent last week from 34 percent growth the week before.

In Schleswig-Holstein, Hamburg, Bremen and Berlin, which were affected by the omicron wave earlier than the rest of the country, the number of cases has already fallen again.

Nevertheless, the RKI warned: "The peak of the fifth wave has not yet been reached."

In recent weeks, the RKI has noted a “significant increase in doctor consultations for acute respiratory diseases with a Covid 19 diagnosis, including in the elderly population”.

It was “already at the level of the fourth wave”.

The number of corona-positive patients in the intensive care units rose to 2389 – in the previous week it was 2307.

Meanwhile, the debate about the soon-to-be easing of the corona restrictions continues.

The Greens parliamentary group leader Britta Haßelmann called for the basic corona measures to be extended beyond March 19.

If easing in public life took effect, "they must be further supported by basic protective measures, such as wearing masks," said Haßelmann to the newspapers of the editorial network Germany (RND).

The federal and state governments should agree on this at the next prime ministers' conference on February 16.

Of course, preparations would have to be made for the time when the number of infections fell and the situation eased.

"The federal and state governments will therefore have to agree on a careful, gradual opening," said Hasselmann.

The basis for containment measures by the federal states, such as the obligation to wear a mask, is a passage in the Infection Protection Act.

According to the current status, the regulation only applies until March 19th.

It can be extended once by three months by resolution of the German Bundestag.