Corona News: Corona vaccinations should remain free of charge on a broader front

News about Corona from March 22, 2023

Corona-Vaccinations should remain free of charge on a broader front

Wednesday, March 22, 12:04 p.m.: The corona vaccinations in Germany are to be transferred to regular health care at Easter. From April 8th, vaccinations should be possible free of charge on a broader front, according to a draft regulation by the Federal Ministry of Health. In the future, the framework for the right to vaccinations should be a technical guideline based on the recommendations of the Standing Vaccination Commission (Stiko). However, vaccinations should also be possible at health insurance costs if it “is considered medically necessary by a doctor”. The previous rules on vaccination entitlements for everyone expire on April 7th.

According to the draft, it should be ensured that there is a high level of immunity in the population beyond the vaccinations provided for in the directive. A “continuous, more comprehensive range of vaccinations based on medical indications and individual risk-benefit assessment” could, with the prevailing Omikron variant, help to avoid overburdening the healthcare system in the coming autumn and winter. “This is especially true as immunity decreases after vaccination or infection.”

According to the stipulations in the vaccination directive alone, vaccination claims would depend on whether you have previous illnesses, belong to certain age and professional groups – or whether health insurance companies allow it, it is said to justify the planned more extensive regulation.

Biden wants to publish secret information about Corona

Tuesday, March 21, 07:35: US President Joe Biden has signed legislation releasing intelligence information on the origin of the coronavirus. He shares Congress’ goal of releasing as much information as possible about the origin of the virus, Biden said Monday. The aim is to be able to better prevent future pandemics. When published, however, no information would be disclosed that could endanger national security.

Congress had passed a corresponding law about a week and a half ago. There is reason to believe that the corona pandemic originated in a laboratory in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, the text said. Therefore, the US intelligence coordinator should release “as much information as possible” about the origin of the virus and make it available to the public. However, it initially remained unclear what information the government would release and when.

According to the latest information from the White House, there is still no unanimous opinion in the US government about the origin of the virus. Some US agencies, including the FBI, remain of the opinion that the virus was probably transmitted naturally, while others are undecided or assume a laboratory glitch.

The end of the state vaccination campaign in the state of Bremen is imminent

Sunday, March 19, 2023 at 3:02 p.m.: The state vaccination campaign against the corona virus in the state of Bremen will end in the next few days. In the city of Bremen, the last vaccinations will be carried out this Friday, in Bremerhaven on Tuesday. The health department of the two-city state announced this in a statement on Friday. The vaccination campaign began on December 27, 2020 in a nursing home. More than 1.1 million vaccinations were administered in the state campaign.

“Large, high-performance vaccination centers, smaller vaccination centers in the districts and mobile offers in the districts: that was the key to our success,” said Bremen’s Health Senator Claudia Bernhard (left). The Bremen vaccination campaign has set nationwide standards, according to the department’s statement. According to the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), the federal state has the highest proportion of people with basic immunization nationwide at 88.3 percent.

In the past, it caused a sensation that the adult vaccination rate in the country rose to over 100 percent. The RKI explained the fact that people who do not live in Bremen are also included in the statistics who have been vaccinated there – such as seafarers or commuters.

Minister Nonnemacher appreciates the work of the health authorities

Saturday, March 18, 9:35 a.m.: In addition to many other areas of responsibility, the municipal health authorities have been very heavily involved in the fight against the pandemic over the past three years. Health promotion, preventive medical examinations of children and young people in daycare centers and schools often took place under difficult conditions, the minister said on the day of the health department this Sunday. Its motto is “Prevention and Health Promotion”.

There are 18 health authorities in the state, one in each district and in each urban district, as well as the State Office for Occupational Safety, Consumer Protection and Health (LAVG). In the corona pandemic, the municipal health authorities recorded, among other things, the new corona infections. Her area of ​​responsibility also included the tracing of contact persons infected with Corona. The employees often worked at their limit.

According to the ministry, the public health service is strengthening, among other things, personal responsibility for health and wants to avoid health risks and health impairments. This is more relevant than ever this year, because there is a lot to catch up after the pandemic and to improve its effects on health, said Minister Nonnemacher.

According to AOK, every third employee is absent due to Covid

Thursday March 16, 2023 6:36 am: According to the health insurance company AOK, at least a third of the full-time employees insured with it were absent from their company for a day or longer during the pandemic. Around 455,000 of the 1.4 million continuously employed insured persons of the AOK Baden-Württemberg (32 percent) were written off at least once between March 2020 and December 2022 due to a Covid 19 disease, the health insurance company announced on Thursday. Almost 11,000 employees (1 percent) had or have to recover from long-term effects of a corona infection. This also has an effect on the sickness rate in the country, which according to the AOK was higher last year than it had been in a dozen years.

According to the evaluation of the Scientific Institute of the AOK (WIdO), the different virus variants had different consequences for the statistics. In the period of the dominant delta variant between September and December 2021, 2.5 percent of those who were acutely ill had a so-called post-Covid illness. “Their proportion is twice as high as in the time when the omicron variant prevailed,” said the AOK. This had a late effect on only 1.1 percent of all those acutely affected by Covid at the time.

According to the evaluation, delta or omicron are also reflected in the average length of incapacity to work due to a post-Covid illness: In the period when the delta variant was dominant, the average duration was 43.2 days, significantly longer than in the period in which the omicron variant was dominant (30.9 days). “The good news is that both the number of people affected and the severity of the disease, which can be derived from the days lost, have decreased over the course of the pandemic,” said Jana Linsky, Head of Medicine at AOK Baden-Württemberg.

According to the AOK, the duration of a loss of work has so far been based primarily on age. Employees under the age of 30 were on average 7.27 days unfit for work due to an acute illness and 16.65 days due to a post-Covid illness. For patients aged 60 and over, these values ​​averaged 11.07 days and 45.24 days. Across all employees in Baden-Württemberg, there was an average of 9 lost days for acute Covid illnesses and an average of 30 days for post-Covid illnesses. According to AOK information, childcare workers and educators, occupational therapists and employees in health and nursing as well as in geriatric care were particularly often infected.

However, the AOK, which claims to be health insurance for more than 4.5 million people in the country, emphasizes that there are many unreported cases because many Covid failures lasting up to three days are not documented. In addition, there are different diagnoses and definitions of the long-term consequences. In addition, acute Covid infections were sometimes recorded unspecifically as respiratory infections.

According to the State Health Office, more than 5 million Covid cases have been registered in Baden-Württemberg alone. Since then, almost 19,300 people have died in connection with the corona virus (as of March 9, 4 p.m.).

China wants to lift visa restrictions imposed because of Corona

Tuesday, March 14, 2023 at 6:20 a.m.: After the lifting of almost all corona rules in China, most of the visa restrictions for foreigners should now also fall. From Wednesday, a number of visas should be issued again, the responsible department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced on Tuesday. In addition, visas that were issued before March 2020 and are still valid should allow entry into the People’s Republic again.

According to the new regulations, visa-free travel should again be possible for tourists who arrive in the metropolis of Shanghai by cruise ship.

The People’s Republic had around 65.7 million international visitors in 2019 – and thus before Corona. After the start of the pandemic, the country almost completely isolated itself from the outside world from March 2020. Many foreigners residing in China have been cut off from their jobs and their families as a result. Tourists stopped coming to the country.

Until shortly before the end of last year, China had been pursuing an extremely strict pandemic policy with mass tests, rigid quarantine regulations and travel restrictions with serious consequences for social life and the economy. In November, pent-up resentment erupted in the largest public demonstrations in decades. The government then abruptly ended the corona measures: millions of people became infected, thousands died, and the authorities did not record exact numbers.

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