The number of COVID-19 cases in Germany is on the rise as the country’s health officials stated this to being a 3rd wave of the pandemic.
The country also announced that it would be pausing the usage of the AstraZeneca vaccines despite the increasing number of confirmed cases as the vaccine is reportedly causing some adverse side-effects.
According to an expert at the Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases on Tuesday made it known that the number of cases are on the rise and the need for a more stricter regulations needs to be made to ensure the safety of Germans.
The number of cases per 100,000 reported on Tuesday was 83.7, up from 68 a week ago, and the RKI has said that metric could reach 200 by the middle of next month.
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“We are exactly on the flank of the third wave(of the COVID-19 pandemic). That can no longer be disputed. And at this point we have eased the restrictions and that is speeding up the exponential growth,” Dirk Brockmann, an epidemiologist at the RKI, told Germany’s ARD television.
The county’s chancellor Angela Merkel and other state leaders agreed a phased easing of curbs earlier this month along with other necessary emergency brake which will allow the country’s appropriate authorities to reimpose restrictions if case number rise above 100 per 100,000 on three consecutive days.
On Tuesday, the number of cases per 100,000 rose to 83.7, up from 68 a week ago, and the RKI has said that metric could reach 200 by the middle of next month.
Germany joined other EU countries such as France, Italy, the Netherlands and others to suspend the usage of AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine over reports of blood clots in recipients.
The decision followed a recommendation from the Paul Ehrlich Institute (PEI), Germany’s authority in charge of vaccines, following seven cases of thrombosis, including three deaths.
There was a planned meeting between the country’s Chancellor and state leaders on Wednesday in order to discuss using family doctors to administer COVID-19 vaccines but due to the medical issues that arose as a result of the side-effect of the vaccine, the meeting has now been postponed until the European Medicines Agency completes its review on the AstraZeneca’s shot.
AstraZeneca has said an analysis of its safety data covering reported cases from over 17 million vaccine doses given had shown no evidence of an increased risk of pulmonary embolism, deep vein thrombosis or thrombocytopenia – having low levels of platelets.
Brockmann said it made sense to explain the relative risks to the population, noting that 1,000 people in a million had died of COVID-19, compared to possibly 1 in a million from complications associated with the vaccine.
“In the risk groups, the risk of dying of COVID is much, much higher. That means it is probably 100,000 times more likely to die of COVID than because of an AstraZeneca vaccine,” he said.
Some have also related the sudden collective halt in the vaccination campaign as being politically motivated as the number of complicated cases are extremely minor and the World Health Organization has maintained that further investigation will be carried out to know if the adverse side-effects are related to the AstraZeneca vaccines.
