The European Medicines Agency (EMA) has given the green light for the booster vaccination of children from the age of 12 with the corona vaccine from the manufacturers Pfizer and Biontech.

The EMA announced this on Thursday in Amsterdam.

The experts also agree on the basic vaccination of children from six to eleven years with the vaccine from the manufacturer Moderna.

The EU Commission must make a final decision.

This is considered a formality.

However, the EMA emphasized that the EU member states themselves decide whether a booster vaccination should be offered to children.

According to the EMA, the booster vaccination with the Pfizer preparation has a lower dose for children than for adults.

The vaccine is already approved as a basic vaccination in two doses for people aged 5 and over.

However, the approval for a booster vaccination was previously only available from the age of 18.

A booster is given after the primary immunization, which usually consists of two vaccinations.

According to the EMA, this increases protection against infection and serious illness.

Moderna's vaccine should also be approved for children aged 6 to 11.

The effectiveness and safety of the preparation is just as high as in adults.

For children, the dose should be reduced by 50 percent, as the EMA announced.

Studies have shown that the immune protection in children is as high as in adolescents aged 18 to 25 with the high dose.

Possible side effects include pain and redness at the injection site, fatigue, headache, nausea, fever and joint pain.

Nationwide seven-day incidence falls again

Since the beginning of the pandemic, more than 14 million corona infections have been registered in Germany.

As the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) announced today, the health authorities have reported a total of 14,188,269 infections.

The actual number of infections is likely to be significantly higher, as many go undetected.

Because some people were infected several times, this number cannot be used to determine how many people have been proven to have the virus.

The nationwide seven-day incidence has fallen again.

The RKI gave the value of new infections per 100,000 inhabitants and week as 1265.0.

For comparison: the day before the value was 1306.8.

A week ago, the nationwide incidence was 1385.1.

The health authorities in Germany reported 216,322 new corona infections to the RKI within one day.

This is evident from numbers that reflect the status of the RKI dashboard at 5 a.m.

A week ago there were 235,626 infections.

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

One reason is the limited capacity of health authorities, for example, and contacts are often only tracked to a limited extent.

In addition, according to the laboratory association ALM, there is now a larger number of people whose infection is no longer confirmed by a PCR test - these infections are therefore not included in the official statistics.

243 dead within one day

According to the new information, 243 deaths were recorded across Germany within 24 hours.

A week ago there were 261 deaths.

The number of corona-infected patients who came to clinics per 100,000 inhabitants within seven days was 6.34 (Tuesday 6.21) according to the RKI.

Among them are many people with a positive corona test who have another main illness.

According to the German Interdisciplinary Association for Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine (Divi), the corona situation in the intensive care units is currently relatively relaxed.

"We admit around 250 new patients to the intensive care units every day, but we also move many back to the normal wards," said Divi President Gernot Marx to the editorial network Germany.

Marx described the situation with regard to the care and treatment of corona patients as “currently very stable”.

The number of Covid patients in intensive care units is currently falling slightly again.

"But that is expressly not due to a noticeable number of deceased, as we had to record in November and December, for example," he said.

The RKI put the number of people who had recovered at 10,435,800.

The number of people who died from or involved a proven infection with Sars-CoV-2 rose to 122,145.