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Jan 31, 2021 · COVID-19 cases are notified to the local public health department in the respective districts, in accordance with the German Protection against Infection Act (IfSG). The data are further transmitted through the respective federal state health authority to the Robert Koch Institute (RKI). This situation report presents the uniformly recorded nationwide data on laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 ...
Jul 12, 2022 · The data are further transmitted through the respective federal state health authority to the Robert Koch Institute (RKI). This situation report presents the uniformly recorded nationwide data on laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 cases transmitted to RKI.
- Introduction
- Context
- Prevent
- Detect
- Contain
- Treat
- Conclusion
- In-Depth Explainers on Exemplar Countries
Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Germany has shown several elements of success across the four phases of our preparedness and response framework: prevent, detect, contain, and treat. The country’s incredibly strong enabling environment, including a good local public and health care system and expert scientific institutions, has largely contributed...
Country overview
Germany has the fourth largest economy in the world and spends approximately 11 percent of its gross domestic product on health care, with US$5,119 spent per capita per year.1,2 As a result, the capacity of Germany’s health care system is considered to be very high. In the European Union (EU), Germany has the most hospital beds per 1,000 people (8.3)3 and a robust sector of private and public laboratories, of which nearly 200 indicate capacity for SARS-CoV-2-tesing.4 It also ranks among the t...
Outbreak timeline
The first case in Germany was reported on January 27in Bavaria. On February 1, the government further clarified reporting obligations and mandated that all health care providers report suspected cases of COVID-19 within 24 hours to local public health authorities.10 On February 27, with a total of 26 confirmed cases, the government set up an inter-ministerial national crisis management group. The next day, the government required all travelers entering the country from high-risk areas (such a...
Epidemiological expertise and surveillance
The German government entered the pandemic with a detailed National Pandemic Plan.13 Together with generic preparedness plans and other disease-specific plans and documents (e.g., for MERS), this detailed response plan enabled the government to activate quickly, with no time wasted on disputes related to governance, accounting, or costs.14 Because Germany is a highly federalized country, the responsibility for public health lies primarily with intermediate and local public health authorities...
Testing
In January 2020, scientists at Germany’s Charité hospital developed one of the first specific tests for the presence of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in patients, which is now used widely around the world.16 The World Health Organization adopted it as one of the core diagnostic tests. Given how quickly the test was developed, Germany was able to turn its attention early to growing its testing capacity.17 The country was uniquely positioned to do this because its laboratories have the expertise, accred...
Contact tracing
Bavarian health authorities and scientists closely examined—and eventually broke—the chain of transmission among the first cluster of cases, which occurred at the end of January in Bavaria. Breaking this initial chain bought Germany critical time to design its response while yielding important lessons about how the disease is transmitted.21 By using a combination of epidemiological methods such as interviews and whole genome sequencing, the team was able to reconstruct and describe transmissi...
Antibody testing
German scientists from the University of Bonn conducted some of the world’s first COVID-19 antibody studies in the hard-hit town of Gangelt, where it found community infection rates of nearly 14 percent.27Among other scientific institutions planning serological studies, as part of its long-term strategy, RKI has announced a three-pronged approach to gathering data about community spread, with the idea that the data will help shape more sensitive policies in the future. The elements of its app...
The first major international satellite outbreak outside of China happened in Germany at the end of January. A single index case from China hit Bavaria, a well-equipped region, but the local and regional resources for contact tracing were still immediately stretched.29 On February 1, 2020, the first flight of mainly German citizens returning from W...
In March a register of ICUs was established by the German Interdisciplinary Association for Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine and RKI.41 Since April 16, ICU capacity and COVID-19 patients treated in ICU have been reported daily. These data help to understand the severity of the disease and potential impacts on the health care system. Based on d...
Germany’s strong health care system and early progress on detection complemented its effective containment strategy. Ensuring the increase of human resources among understaffed local public health facilities was another key component to enable more efficient contact tracing, but these resources may not be sustainable. Overall, Germany’s focus on co...
This framework identified three countries which provide key success stories in addressing the pandemic: South Korea, Vietnam and Germany. In follow-up articles, in-country experts provide key insights into how these countries achieved this.
Until late March, due to the restrictive Robert Koch Institute (RKI) testing criteria, Germans without specific symptoms could not be tested. On 25 March 2020, the RKI announced that people no longer needed to come from risk areas to be tested.
Das Robert Koch-Institut (RKI) ist die zentrale Behörde in Deutschland für Krankheitsüberwachung und -prävention. Das RKI hat aufgrund der Ausbreitung des Coronavirus ein Lagezentrum eingerichtet.
The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) is a German federal government agency and research institute responsible for disease control and prevention. It is located in Berlin and Wernigerode . As an upper federal agency, it is subordinate to the Federal Ministry of Health .
Apr 21, 2022 · Laut RKI steigt die Sieben-Tage-Inzidenz auf 720,6. Am Vortag hatte der Wert bei 688,3 gelegen. Es wurden 186.325 Corona-Neuinfektionen erfasst. Die Zahlen sind allerdings nur bedingt aussagekräftig.
