While the number of available intensive care beds continues to rise.
Almost makes you wonder if this latest variant isn’t all that dangerous (am I allowed to wonder that?). Hey, when in doubt (and your everyday, run-of-the-mill top health official apparently always is) just increase the panic level one more notch.
Germany: Omicron wave breaks new weekly cases record – The new wave of coronavirus infections in Germany has now surpassed numbers last seen in November. Experts are warning of the threat this poses to the unvaccinated.
Please? For health reasons? And then there’s COVID too.
Berlin Shortens Film Festival, Requires Vaccination and Testing – The 2022 Berlinale hopes new COVID-19 restrictions will allow it to have in-person screenings and events in February.
The Berlin International Film Festival has cut three days off its official screening schedule for 2022 and introduced new coronavirus measures, requiring attendees to be both fully vaccinated or recently recovered from a COVID-19 infection, plus show a recent negative COVID test.
Berlin 2022 will now run Feb. 10-16, with the festival’s Gold and Silver Bear honors handed out on Wednesday, Feb. 16. The final four days of the festival, Feb. 17-20, will feature repeat screenings of festival titles in cinemas around the German capital. Traditionally, Berlin sets aside one day for these “public screenings.”
Germany’s Robert Koch Institute issued statistics on December 30 indicating that 96% of the latest Omicron patients were fully vaccinated, with only 4% unvaccinated.
Thank goodness the tweaking has really paid off for them. Sort of. Now they say: “It would seem the percentage of omicron cases among unvaccinated people accounted for 21%, not 4%.”
Now only 79% of the latest omicron patients were fully vaccinated. What a relief.
You can catch that Omicron cold there lickety-split there these days.
Germany has added to the list of high-risk areas the highest number of countries in over a year at once, including several European Union Member States, amid the increase of Coronavirus cases throughout the world, and in particular, the spread of the Omicron variant.
Updating the list of countries highly affected by the virus on Friday, January 7, 2022, the Robert Koch Institute, which is the German government research institute responsible for disease control and prevention, has expanded the same list by adding the following:
Angola Argentina Australia The Bahamas Bahrain Belize Bolivia Cape Verde The Democratic Republic of the Congo Ivory Coast Estonia Fiji France – the French overseas departments of French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Mayotte, St. Martin and St. Barthélemy Gabon Ghana Grenada Guinea Island Israel Jamaica Qatar Kenya Comoros Kuwait Luxembourg Mali Mauritania The Netherlands – the overseas parts of the Kingdom of the Netherlands of Aruba and Curaçao Nigeria Panama Rwanda Zambia Sweden Sierra Leone South Sudan Togo Uganda Uruguay The United Arab Emirates
That means mandatory vaccination. And those signs down there read “for free vaccination decisions” and “no to mandatory vaccination.”
Tens of thousands of people are protesting against the latest restrictive COVID measures in German cities all over the country. And it’s fun to watch the state media squirm. They’re clearly finding it more and more difficult labelling these people wackos.
In Hamburg, some 13,700 people attended a demonstration against the restrictions, police said.
Under the banner, “Stop the corona dictatorship,” 4,000 protested in Düsseldorf.
Around 5,000 people rallied in Frankfurt, according to the police.
A Community of German Anti-Vaxxers on the Black Sea Coast – A number of Germans have sought refuge on Bulgaria’s Black Sea coast from what they view as dictatorial anti-coronavirus measures back home. It has developed into a kind of alternative reality for conspiracy theorists.
They came here to stay. Their cars with license plate numbers from the North Sea coast, Berlin and Bavaria are parked out in front of the Château Aheloy on the Black Sea coast in Bulgaria. The apartment complex in the town of Aheloy is considered a stronghold of German-speaking corona truthers and so-called “Querdenker,” that hodgepodge of anti-government conspiracy theorists who have waged an ongoing campaign against all measures aimed at combatting the pandemic.
“For you, we’re all just tin foil-hat wearing yokel. You just want to shove us into a corner and stand us up against the wall.”
I mean, vaccinations. But I would go ahead and get tested if I were that cop.
COVID protester bites German police officer as marches spark violence – Police in Germany has reported sporadic violence at demonstrations against the country’s COVID-19 pandemic restrictions, with one protester in the eastern town of Lichtenstein biting an officer and another attempting to steal a service weapon.
Over 35,000 German “walkers” protested against the government’s anti-Covid measures in German cities last night. This appears to be embarrassing for Germany’s state news channels because they are doing their damndest to ignore this.
Mehr als 35 000 Menschen sind am Montag in zahlreichen deutschen Städten gegen die staatlichen Corona-Maßnahmen auf die Straße gegangen – oft bei nicht genehmigten “Spaziergängen”.
German health minister’s office vandalized – People angry over COVID curbs have been held responsible for damaging the offices of two German lawmakers on New Year’s Eve — including the constituency office of Health Minister Karl Lauterbach.
They had not choice. Firework sales have been prohibited in Germany.
Thanks a million, COVID.
Germans flock to Poland to buy fireworks in defiance of ban – Firework sales prohibited in Germany for second year in a row owing to Covid, resulting in growing stockpile.
Observing Hermann 