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The corona numbers have become part of our everyday life, and for some they have also become an annoying habit.
The daily abstract values of newly infected, newly deceased, the seven-day incidence.
Numbers that assess the conduct of Germans and the decisions of politics every day like a teacher in school.
A new record was set on Thursday: 20,372 people, as it is called in bureaucratic German, died “of or with” Covid-19.
The second sad record: 23,679 newly infected people, more than ever on a day during the pandemic.
In addition, the seven-day incidence of 149 is still far too high.
As a reminder: the federal and state governments had agreed on a value of 50 as a tolerable brand.
Source: Infographic WELT / Beate Nowak
Source: Infographic WELT / Beate Nowak
These numbers are abstract and you really don't want to hear them anymore.
But they reveal more than just the drama of a situation in which the hospital and nursing staff are challenged beyond measure.
The numbers also reveal the new dynamics of the pandemic: Contrary to what many hoped for with a view to Christmas and in view of the various lockdown variants, the infection process seems to be picking up speed again.
Although the second wave has barely broken, a third is already building up.
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Is that scare tactics now?
It's what the numbers show.
From the high plateau on which the new infections had leveled in the past few weeks, they are now not developing downwards, but rather they are rising.
So will the third wave come now, before Christmas and before this year ends?
That could be - but it doesn't have to be.
Because the vast majority of Germans do not want the situation to escalate.
People don't want any restrictions, no hard lockdown, no economic ruin, no rise in mental illness.
But what they also do not want: that the number of seriously ill and dead people continues to rise and that the clinics can no longer accept new patients.
And that's why, as much as it sucks, everyone has to keep looking at the numbers.