The health authorities are complaining about the increasing refusal of people infected with corona to participate in the follow-up of their contacts.

In the Hanover region, the authorities reported a case in which the guest at a wedding party stated in retrospect that he did not know whose wedding it was.

Reinhard Bingener

Political correspondent for Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Bremen based in Hanover.

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The health authority in Bremen knows similar cases.

A spokesman reports of corona infected people who were in the cinema and allegedly cannot remember the name of the film or their companions.

"Currently, on average, every second person who tested positive claims to have never met anyone," said Hergen-Herbert Scheve, who is responsible for public health at the Hanover region.

“On average, we record 2.2 contact persons per index case,” says Scheve.

This certainly does not reflect reality.

In Bremen, the number of unvaccinated contact persons recorded was at least 3.74 in the past week, albeit with a clear downward trend.

Six weeks ago the number was 7.5.

Fear of quarantine

The health authorities cite the fear of quarantine orders in the personal environment as the reason for the lack of willingness to cooperate. The spokesman for the Bremen health authority, Lukas Fuhrmann, suspects that sometimes it should also be prevented that the official measures thwart vacation plans. There may also be fear of having violated applicable contact restrictions, for example by meeting more than ten unvaccinated people.

In addition, most corona infections are currently occurring in a certain section of society.

Both Bremen and Hanover report that more than 90 percent of the known corona infections are not completely vaccinated.

"Almost all infected people are also young," says the spokesman for the Bremen authorities.

This part of the population has more contacts, and celebrations, going to bars and possibly a certain carelessness play a greater role in the contagion.

The contact tracking apps and lists are practically worthless to the authorities.

The Bremen health authority reports that the data from the Luca app could only be used sensibly five times.

With laid out lists, the balance does not look better.

Change of strategy in NRW

A few days ago, the state of North Rhine-Westphalia decided not to store personal data.

The state of Baden-Württemberg is also considering a comparable change in strategy.

That is not planned in Bremen.

"Contact tracing remains and is particularly important within the family, at work and above all in vulnerable facilities," says Fuhrmann, spokesman for the authorities.

The Hanover region is also sticking to its previous strategy and is now trying to increase its willingness to cooperate with a multilingual social media campaign entitled “Don't be afraid of quarantine”.

The campaign also advises that contacts will not be quarantined if they are vaccinated.