Lauterbach pays tribute to the behavior of the burghers

SPD health expert karl lauterbach pays attention to people’s behavior in the fight against the coronavirus – less to damming measures.

"It will depend on how the population behaves. That’s more important than individual mab. Many conditions are difficult to check anyway," the physician told the newspapers of the funke mediengruppe.

If the coronavirus continues to spread so quickly, lauterbach expects local shutdowns in germany. "It’s very simple. The R-value is around 1.3. If we don’t get this down, the daily case numbers will increase so much in a very short time that the clinics and health departments will be overrun. Then come local shutdowns."The reproduction number, also called R-value, indicates how many more people an infected person will infect. According to the situation report of the robert koch institute from saturday evening, the R-value was 1.4.

Early sunday morning, the robert koch institute reported 5587 new corona infections in germany, up from 3483 new cases a week earlier. Saturday’s 7830 was the third successive high in the number of visitors. On sundays and mondays, the recorded case numbers are usually lower, also because on weekends not all health authorities transmit data to the RKI.

German chancellor angela merkel had called on people to limit social contacts and travel less in view of the jump in the number of corona infections on saturday. "We must now do everything to prevent the virus from spreading uncontrollably. Every day pays," the CDU politician said in her weekly video message.

The CDU politician received support for her appeal from bavaria’s minister president markus soder. The head of the CSU told "bild am sonntag": "the situation is serious. If we don’t take countermeasures quickly, corona will get out of control. Whoever pulls risks a second lockdown. Prudence, caution and solidarity have never been as important as they are now."Criticism came from FDP leader christian lindner, who told the paper: "if the chancellor sees such a dramatic situation, she must immediately issue a government declaration. A podcast is no substitute for a debate in the bundestag when it comes to fundamental rights."

SPD leader norbert walter-borjans called on the younger generation to show more prudence and solidarity. "We have to tell this generation, which is an important reminder of many ethical issues in our society, such as climate protection or international conflicts, in no uncertain terms: this is not just about you, but you are also endangering others with your behavior, especially the weaker ones," walter-borjans told the "spiegel" newspaper. At the same time, he emphasized that one should "not accuse an entire generation of bad character.

Saxony’s minister-president michael kretschmer calls for stronger support from the federal armed forces in the health offices in the fight against the corona virus. "We are in the exponential phase," the CDU politician told the "bild am sonntag" newspaper. "We have to reckon with the number of new infections doubling in a three- or four-day rhythm. This pushes the health authorities to their limits when it comes to following up on contacts of positively tested cases, and we can no longer break the chains of infection."

According to kretschmer, the health authorities urgently need to be staffed up. "The federal armed forces must be more closely involved and employees from the state ministries must be seconded to the team. The police have to help the public order officers in controlling the mabnahmen."

More than two-thirds of germans tend to be satisfied with the federal government’s corona crisis management, according to a survey. 68 percent of those surveyed rated the leadership as "rather good" in a poll conducted by the opinion research institute kantar on behalf of "bild am sonntag. For 27 percent it is "rather bad". 4 percent answered "no".

On saturday, the federal prasidial office had announced that federal president frank-walter steinmeier had gone into quarantine. One of his bodyguards had tested positive for the virus. An initial corona test on the head of state came back negative. Steinmeier of course remains in quarantine, at present he is in his official villa in berlin-dahlem, it was said. Steinmeier to be tested again in the coming days.