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Frankfurt / Hamburg (dpa) - Shortly before the next round of decisions about the further corona measures, the Frankfurt virologist Sandra Ciesek pleads not only to look at the incidence.
This value indicates how many confirmed new infections there were per 100,000 inhabitants in the past seven days.
So far, a value below 50 was considered a benchmark for possible easing.
"But is the incidence alone really effective?" Asked Ciesek in the NDR podcast "Coronavirus Update" on Tuesday.
"It is just as important to look at the R value," said the director of the Institute for Medical Virology at the Frankfurt University Hospital: "So how many people are infected by an infected person."
With a value above one, one must assume that infections will rise again as soon as more contacts are allowed.
If it is below one, it can be assumed that "loosening it would not have such a negative effect."
The British variant of the coronavirus represents an additional factor of uncertainty. It is known that the mutation B117 is more contagious, explained Ciesek.
The R-value increases with increasing distribution.
At the same time, however, the number of infections with the wild type is falling.
"That is why it is currently very difficult to decide to what extent to relax and which areas to relax."
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