The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) has lowered its risk assessment of the current Corona situation in Germany by one level. The current risk posed by Covid-19 to public health is now assessed by the authority as "high" overall, according to the RKI weekly report published on Thursday evening. Previously, the risk had been assessed as "very high".

The experts justify the assessment with the recent clearly declining infection incidence, but a still considerable infection pressure. Last week, the seven-day incidence had fallen further - by 19 percent - compared with the previous week. The number of people treated in an intensive care unit with a Covid 19 diagnosis also has continued to decline recently, he said, and the number of deaths has declined as well.

Nevertheless, with nearly 600,000 Corona cases reported to the RKI in the past week, the number of infections is still high. Accordingly, vaccination remains important. It still "has not lost its importance due to its high protective effect against a severe course, even in the case of diseases caused by the Omicron variant," the report says.

The RKI reported 85,073 new infections within 24 hours on Friday. That's 16,537 fewer cases than last Friday, when 101,610 Corona infections were reported. The seven-day incidence nationwide drops to 553.2 from 566.8 the previous day. 214 more people died in connection with the virus. This brings the total number of reported deaths to 136,339.

Infection figures are generally of limited value at present. For some time, experts have been assuming a high number of cases not recorded by the RKI - due to overburdened health offices and because not all infected people have a PCR test done. Only these count in the statistics. For this reason, the SZ-Corona dashboard shows an average value from the reports of the past seven days, which is intended to compensate for fluctuations from day to day.

Image by Alexandra Koch