(Fighting New Coronary Pneumonia) A clustered infection of mutant strains occurred in a hospital in Berlin, Germany
China News Agency, Berlin, January 23 (Reporter Peng Dawei) On the 23rd, a hospital in Berlin, Germany, implemented a complete lockdown due to a cluster infection of variant strains of the new coronavirus in the hospital, and all patients and medical staff went into isolation.
According to German media reports, 20 people in the hospital have been diagnosed with the mutant strain.
According to media reports such as the Berlin-Brandenburg Broadcasting Company and Berlin’s "Daily Mirror", it was the Berlin Humboldt Hospital under the Vivantes Medical Group that was infected with the mutant strain.
As of the afternoon of the same day, 14 patients and 6 staff members of the hospital had been diagnosed with the "B.1.1.7" mutant strain first discovered in the UK.
Due to the continuous increase in the number of confirmed cases, the health department of the Reinikendorf District where the hospital is located has imposed a lockdown on the Humboldt Hospital. The patients and medical staff in the hospital have been isolated and stopped accepting new patients.
On the evening of January 19, local time, German Chancellor Merkel and the governors of the states announced that they would extend the "closure" measures currently implemented in Germany to February 14 and strengthen the implementation of epidemic prevention measures.
The picture shows the sign for wearing a mask taken in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin that day.
Photo by China News Agency reporter Peng Dawei
Rashaid, the head of the health department in the district, said that people need to pay attention to the scope of the cluster infection.
He said that it is not clear what impact the incident will have on the overall epidemic prevention situation in Berlin.
The German disease control agency announced on the 23rd that the number of newly diagnosed new crown virus infections and the number of new deaths were 16,417 and 879 respectively.
According to the real-time data of Germany's "Times Online", as of 21:00 local time on the 23rd, Germany has confirmed a total of 2,135,352 people, cured 1,794,786 people, and died 52,452 people.
As of that day, Germany had received 1,632,777 doses of the new crown vaccine, and 163,424 people had received the second dose.
In response to the current discussions in the German political circles about the timetable for "unblocking", the authoritative virologist in the country and the director of the Institute of Virology at the Charité School of Medicine in Berlin, Dr. Rosten, expressed his views on the development of the German spring to summer epidemic in an exclusive interview with German media. Worry.
He said that once the elderly and some high-risk groups have been vaccinated, they will face economic, social, political and even legal pressures to end the epidemic prevention and blockade measures.
He said that if this is done, there will be a large number of new confirmed cases in a short period of time. "In the worst case, it will not be 20,000-30,000 new cases per day, but 100,000."
Drosten pointed out that although most of the newly diagnosed cases at this time were young people, and the severe illness rate was lower than that of the elderly, if the number of infected young people was large, it would still cause the hospital's intensive care bed to be overloaded and many patients died.
He said that if the number of newly diagnosed cases can be reduced as much as possible now, then the above-mentioned "worst case" can be avoided to some extent.
(Finish)