In view of the omicron wave, the Berlin health authorities are further restricting contact tracing after corona infections.
“The high number of cases results in an even stronger prioritization,” said the city councilor for health in Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf, Detlef Wagner, on Wednesday of the German Press Agency. The offices of the twelve districts had agreed on this. In the future, they want to focus even more on people from endangered (vulnerable) groups or on special events such as corona outbreaks in nursing homes when tracking contacts.
Wagner pointed out that health authorities had already reduced follow-up months ago – not least because of a lack of staff. “We have not been able to trace all of the contacts since October 2021,” he described the situation in his district, which is similar in other districts. The number of infections is now increasing sharply because of the Omicron virus variant. In Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf alone, around 70 employees recently faced more than 1000 reported corona cases per day.
Practice shows that most infected people go into isolation on their own, Wagner added. “The principle of personal responsibility works well.” Nevertheless, the employees tried to examine the cases individually.
Berlin’s governing mayor Franziska Giffey (SPD) advocated new rules for contact tracing on Tuesday. It must be clarified at which points this still makes sense so that health authorities can “work more focused” and be relieved. Giffey called for uniform nationwide guidelines and announced that the topic would be addressed at the next Prime Ministers’ Conference (MPK) next Monday (January 24).
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Meanwhile, complaints can be heard from the Berlin population that the new rules agreed by the federal and state governments for the isolation of infected people and the quarantine of contact persons in the districts are sometimes handled differently. This causes uncertainty among parents and daycare centers, for example, when it comes to the question of how long children – or their playmates – have to stay at home after a corona infection.
District Councilor Wagner said that different actions by the offices are legally possible in the context of the individual examination. Health authorities could not do less, but in certain cases they could do more than the legislation provides. Schools and day care centers could also act differently in this sense within the framework of their house rules. The new rules, which have been in effect in Berlin since last Friday, serve the purpose of shortening quarantine and isolation or even avoiding quarantine for people who have been boosted – i.e. people with a booster shot.
Corona is spreading in Berlin faster than ever before. The health authorities reported 1055.1 new infections per 100,000 inhabitants for the past seven days, as the health administration announced on Wednesday. This means that the so-called seven-day incidence has reached four digits for the first time since the outbreak of the pandemic. A week ago it was 856.4. In a comparison of the federal states, it is only higher in Bremen, where it is 1295.6 according to the Robert Koch Institute.
At the district level, six Berlin districts are among the ten districts with the highest incidence nationwide, with Berlin-Mitte leading the way with a value of 1797.5.
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