Thursday's Berlin corona news in 60 seconds
+++ Testing sewage +++ Kid vaccination controversy +++ The stats +++
The latest corona stats for Berlin (tallied Thursday, 27 May)
Berliners vaccinated with one vaccine dose: 39.4 per cent (38.1 Tuesday)
New cases in one day: +120 (+231 Wednesday)
Total number of corona deaths: 3,460 (+6)
🟢 R number: 0.58 (0.80 Wednesday)
🔴 New infections per week: 34.1/100,000 inhabitants (39.3 Wednesday)
🟢 Share of Berlin ICUs occupied by Covid-19 patients: 14.9 per cent (15.5 per cent Wednesday)
Sources: Berlin's coronavirus status page, impfdashboard.de
The latest news
Everyone does it
Researchers are now regularly testing sewage from our fair city to determine the breadth of the pandemic as well as the most common variants of Covid-19 affecting residents. The researchers at the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine say they can sometimes give a more exact picture of the disease's spread because evaluating sewage catches traces of the disease in people without symptoms who wouldn't otherwise be included in statistics. Hotspots within the city can also be found as well as unexpected spikes.
Kids too?
The debate over whether or not to vaccinate kids continues with Frank Montgomery, the head of the World Medical Association, agreeing with Germany's independent vaccination commission (aka STIKO) that not enough information is available on the risks - a vaccination may be more damaging than the disease. German health minister Jens Spahn earlier this month said he wanted every child between 12 and 18 to at least have the opportunity to get vaccinated before the next school year begins. Europe's medicines watchdog has yet to approve any vaccine for people under 18.
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