RKI shifts disease burden to the forefront

In light of the skyrocketing numbers of new Omicron infections in the Corona pandemic, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) is increasingly focusing on the burden of disease rather than measuring every infection.

For the current assessment of the situation, "the focus is not on recording all infections caused by SARS-CoV-2, but rather on the development of the number and severity of illnesses," according to the RKI weekly report released Thursday evening. Even if not every single case is recorded in the reporting system, additional estimates allow "a reliable assessment of the overall development of the epidemiological situation" in Germany, it said.

Specifically, that's why the experts recently began showing estimates of infected individuals with Covid 19 disease symptoms of varying severity in the weekly report. Specifically, this also provides estimates of cases below the threshold for hospital admissions, such as the frequency of doctor visits: In the week ending January 23, this was 280 per 100,000 population, compared with 178 in the previous week, according to the RKI.

For the third week of the year, it was also estimated that "approximately 1.3 to 2.3 percent of children and adolescents up to 14 years of age and 0.6 to 1.3 percent of the population 15 years of age and older experienced covid-19 with symptoms of acute respiratory illness." This information is drawn from a variety of sources, such as data from the general population.

The background for the temporarily incomplete recording of infected persons is, among other things, testing and recording capacities that are increasingly reaching and exceeding their limits. According to the RKI, the health authorities reported on Thursday for the first time more than 200,000 new Corona cases in one day, the seven-day incidence broke through the threshold of 1000.

Image by Gerd Altmann