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Statement of the Standing Commission on Vaccination (STIKO) at the Robert Koch Institute: Decision on the implementation of the COVID-19 vaccination into the general recommendations of the STIKO 2023 (PDF, 299 KB, File does not meet accessibility standards.) Archive. Former vaccination recommendations; COVID-19
- RKI - Homepage
The Robert Koch Institute is the public health institute in...
- Daily Situation Report by the Robert Koch Institute - RKI
11/11/2021- CURRENT STATUS FOR GERMANY. COVID-19 cases are...
- RKI - Homepage
- Introduction
- Context
- Prevent
- Detect
- Contain
- Treat
- Health System and Economic Impact
- Conclusion
- In-Depth Explainers on Exemplar Countries
Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Germany has demonstrated elements of success across the four phases of our preparedness and response framework: prevent, detect, contain, and treat. However, starting in October 2020, the country experienced a major surge in cases and deaths that has yet to be brought under control as of January 2021. The country’s...
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.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, among which nearly 200 have the capacity to test for severe acute respiratory syndrome co...
Outbreak Timeline
The first case in Germany was reported on January 27, 2020, in Bavaria. By then, Germany’s public health infrastructure had already mobilized against the disease.10 Risk assessments and technical guidelines for testing, case finding, contact tracing, hygiene, and disease management, as well as various other documents, were made available on January 16. RKI began issuing daily situation reports for the national and international public health sector on January 23.11 On February 27, with a tota...
Epidemiological Expertise and Surveillance
The German government entered the pandemic with a detailed National Pandemic Plan.19 Together with generic preparedness plans and other disease-specific plans and documents (e.g., for Middle East respiratory syndrome), this detailed response plan enabled the government to activate quickly, with no time wasted on disputes related to governance, accounting, or costs.20 Because Germany is a highly federalized country, the responsibility for public health lies with intermediate and local public h...
Testing
In January 2020, scientists at Germany’s Charité hospital developed one of the first specific tests to detect the presence of SARS-CoV-2 in patients, which is now used widely around the world.22 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 increasing testing capacity.19 The country was uniquely positioned to do this because its laboratories have the expertise, accreditati...
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 2020 in Bavaria. Breaking this initial chain bought Germany critical time to design its response while yielding important lessons about how the disease is transmitted.25 By using a combination of epidemiological methods such as interviews and whole genome sequencing, the team was able to reconstruct and describe trans...
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 they found community infection rates of nearly 14 percent.36 In April, as part of its long-term strategy, RKI 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.37The elements of its approach were: 1. Serological examination of blood donors:...
Physical Distancing
In Germany, efforts to enforce physical distancing measures are complicated by the country’s federal system. States can enact requirements that differ from national guidelines, and the chancellor must obtain unanimous consent to impose a nationwide law or ban. On March 22, Germany enforced strict physical distancing guidelines, banning groups of more than two people in public and shutting down some businesses. Unlike many other EU countries, however, Germany never issued a curfew. These restr...
Travel Restrictions
Travel bans were put into effect in the spring but loosened in May, along with other reopening measures. As a result, travel during the summer months was largely unrestricted. In August, Germany updated its guidelines for travelers to require a test (August 8) and 5-day minimum quarantine (announced August 24) for travelers returning from high-risk areas.11 On November 8, this was further revised to require travelers to use digital entry registration if they had been to a high-risk area in th...
Older Adults
Initially, Germany was able to keep deaths low by limiting the absolute number of infections of people age 70 or older, the group with the highest fatality rates. Of Germany’s total number of cases as of May 2020, 19 percent were among people 70 or older, compared with 36 percent in Spain and 39 percent in Italy. As a result, the overall case fatality rate in Germany was 4.6 percent, compared with 14.1 percent and 12 percent in Italy and Spain, respectively.18 In June, the percentage of total...
In March 2020, a register of ICUs was established by the German Interdisciplinary Association for Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine and RKI.58 Since April 16, 2020, ICU capacity and COVID-19 patients treated in ICUs have been reported daily. These data help make clear the severity of the disease and potential impacts on the health care system. ...
After doctors saw a decline in specialist visits throughout the spring, doctors publicly encouraged people in late May 2020 to visit a doctor as needed, because hospitals had plenty of capacity at that point and the risk of infection was low.11 By October, Germany was accepting patients from other countries, given its excess ICU capacity.61 During ...
Germany demonstrates the difficulty of maintaining success throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite early success relative to its peers in the first phases of the pandemic, the country experienced a major spike in cases that began in October 2020, and as of early February 2021, average daily case counts remained above the April 2020 peak. Overall,...
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.
Sep 16, 2022 · In the four weeks between Oct 11, 2021, and Nov 7, 2021, Germany’s central public health institute, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) reported 250,552 new symptomatic infections in individuals ...
Dec 16, 2020 · Lothar Wieler, head of Germany's Robert Koch Institute, which is overseeing the Covid-19 response, said the situation was "more serious than it has ever been". "The number of cases is higher than ...
Dec 21, 2021 · Germany's Robert Koch Institute (RKI) released new recommendations on Tuesday for measures to slow the spread of the Omicron wave of Covid-19, urging "maximum" contact restrictions and essential ...
