AOn the first day of the new year, the German health authorities reported 12,690 new corona infections. In addition, 336 new deaths were recorded within 24 hours, as the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) announced on Saturday morning. Interpretation of the data is currently difficult, however, because fewer people are likely to be tested during the Christmas holidays and around the turn of the year, and not all offices may transmit their data. According to the RKI, this may result in late registrations. A week ago, on Christmas Day, 14,455 new corona infections and 240 deaths were registered. The high of 1129 new deaths was reached on Wednesday (December 30th).
The number of new infections reported to the health authorities within seven days per 100,000 inhabitants (seven-day incidence) was 141.2 on Saturday morning. Its previous high was reached on December 22nd at 197.6. However, the differences between the federal states are enormous: The highest incidences were on Friday, New Year’s Day, Saxony with 341.2 and Thuringia with 244.7. Schleswig-Holstein had the lowest value with 74.2.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, the RKI has counted 1,755,351 detected infections with Sars-CoV-2 in Germany (as of January 2, 00:00). The total number of people who died with or with a proven Sars-CoV-2 infection rose to 33,960. The RKI stated the number of people recovered to be around 1,368,100.
According to the RKI report on Thursday, the nationwide seven-day R-value was 0.80 (Tuesday: 0.68). This R value means that 100 infected people theoretically infect 80 more people. The value represents the occurrence of the infection 8 to 16 days ago. If it is below 1 for a long time, the infection process subsides. In its report, however, the RKI emphasizes that at the turn of the year, corona cases are only displayed, recorded and transmitted with a delay, “so that the R value may also be underestimated”.
