It Is Five Past Twelve

"Meine Damen und Herren, Es ist fünf nach zwölf," were Professor Robert Wieler's introducing words during a press conference that started at 10:30 a.m. (!) last Thursday.

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The President of the Robert-Koch-Institut (RKI) showed a map of Germany where the high Corona incidence of the fourth wave is painted in various reds over most of the country.

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We now learn the hard way that vaccination coverage of 67.5% is not sufficient for herd immunity against the aggressive Corona delta variant.

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Germany's incidence rate is soaring with new record values daily.

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In July, the RKI had made projections of Corona incidence rates for fall and winter and recommended more vaccinations in Germany. Note that the projected onset of Covid cases starts earlier, but the calculated incidence rates are lower than the actual values.

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Here are the projected incidence rates for a vaccination coverage of 85%. Indeed, countries with higher coverage, like Spain (77.9%) or Portugal (79.2%), with Corona incidence rates of 67 and 86.6, respectively, are better off than Germany.

At high noon today, Red Baron participated in a rally Don't belittle Corona on the street and in administrations at the Square of the Old Synagogue. The tonus was threefold: more jabs, more jabs, more jabs. My Facebook friend Sebastian had applied for and organized the rally. The evening before, I wrote to Sebastian, following Professor Wieler, to start the rally at five minutes past twelve (not so funny 1).

Sebastian is in the back with his loudspeaker.

We weren't many, but mind you, we had to wear masks and keep a distance of 1.5 meters during the rally. To pass his messages, Sebastian was seconded by intensive care staff. 

It wasn't raining. The yellow umbrellas are Grandmas Against Right-wingers' trademark. They are a friendly group in Freiburg and joined us in our protest against conspiracy theories and Querdenker (contrarians).

This lady had an intelligent massage, "Think clearly, instead of queerly." Sorry, but the German pun is not translatable.

Die Partei is Germany's Spaßpartei (fun party). On the yellow sticker, they demand, "Jab objectors, no thank you," on the black-white-red sticker, one reads, "Forced vaccination now, the Kaiser would have wanted it that way." What a contradiction! (not so funny 2).

 

Listening to the speakers at the rally, I learned that in one of Freiburg's hospitals, 50% of all intensive care beds are already occupied by Covid-19 patients, and rising. So if the trend of increasing infections is not broken in Germany, we risk a surcharge of the intensive care units.

In an interview a few days ago, virologist Isabella Eckerle almost casually stated, "And what has probably also not been considered: The age of corona patients in intensive care units has dropped significantly. But the younger ones occupy the beds much longer than the older ones, sometimes for weeks or even months before they recover or die."

Here are some facts about the Corona situation in The Länd, where Red Baron lives, but first, a message from my Facebook friend Mayor Martin Horn:

Stay home, protect yourself and others, and don't attend soccer games.

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Looking at the distribution of Corona incidence in Baden Württemberg, Freiburg, located in the southwest corner, has a "low" rate of 170.

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In the ranking of vaccination coverage among the 16 German states, the Ländle only comes in eleventh place, according to the graph. With a coverage of 67.2%, Baden-Württemberg is below the national average of 69.2%. Discussing why Mayor Horn's figure is only 64.8% is fruitless. All values are simply too low.

My conclusion is the one of the rally: More jabs, more jabs, more jabs.

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