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Nearly 200 people ordered to quarantine in German city over fears of Covid Indian variant outbreak

Since Sunday, around 200 people have been in quarantine in two high-rise buildings in Velbert, North Rhine-Westphalia due to concerns over a possible outbreak connected to the Indian Covid variant.

Published: 18 May 2021 14:57 CEST
Nearly 200 people ordered to quarantine in German city over fears of Covid Indian variant outbreak
Tape seals off the quarantined buildings in Verbert on Tuesday. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Christoph Reichwein

The variant has so far officially been detected in one resident – but tents are ongoing to analyse other positive results.

A total of 189 people from the buildings have been told to go into self-isolation, confirmed Mettmann district head Marcus Kowalczyk to DPA.

Food and other supplies are being provided for them by the Red Cross and other agencies.

All residents of the two high-rise houses have been tested for Covid-19.

Velbert, which has a population of around 85,000, lies north of Wuppertal, and about 20km north east of Düsseldorf.

In total, there have so far been 19 positive results back connected to four families in the two buildings. However, the Indian variant, which is considered particularly contagious, has been detected in only one case so far.

The results of the series of tests conducted on Sunday and Monday are expected later on Tuesday, according to Kowalczyk.

“However, it will take about seven days for the findings that are positive to then be tested for the Indian variant,” he said, adding that he could not yet say how long the residents would need to stay isolated.

A ‘worrying’ variant

The Covid-19 mutant B.1.617, newly classified as a cause for concern, has so far been detected in only a few samples in Germany, “but its proportion has been steadily increasing in recent weeks,” according to an Robert Koch Institute (RKI) report published last week. 

READ ALSO: Indian virus variant ‘steadily increasing’ in Germany

So far, its share in the samples tested is less than two percent, according to the RKI.

The variant was first found in India, which is currently grappling with hundreds of thousands of new cases per day. In response Germany has put tight travel rules between the countries in place in late April.

The variant has been classified as “worrying” by the World Health Organization (WHO). 

According to experts, it could be up to 50 percent more contagious than the British variant, which is still detected in the majority of cases in Germany.

READ ALSO: EXPLAINED: The current travel rules between India and Germany

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COVID-19

Is the pandemic over in Germany?

As much of Germany lifts - or prepares to lift - the last remaining Covid-19 measures, intensive care units say Covid-19 admissions are no longer straining the system.

Published: 24 January 2023 09:00 CET
Is the pandemic over in Germany?

Despite a difficult winter of respiratory illnesses, intensive care units in Germany say Covid-19 admissions have almost halved. The number of cases having to be treated in the ICU has gone down to 800 from 1,500 at the beginning of this month.

“Corona is no longer a problem in intensive care units,” Gernot Marx, Vice President of the German Interdisciplinary Association for Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine, told the German Editorial Network. “A the moment, we don’t have to think every day about how to still ensure the care of patients, but how to actually run a service that can help.”

Marx said the drop has allowed them to catch up on many postponed surgeries.

The number of sick employees in hospitals is also falling, helping to relieve the pressure on personnel.

The easing pressure on hospitals correlates with the assessment of prominent virologist and head of the Virology department at Berlin’s Charite – Christian Drosten – who said in December that the pandemic was close to ending, with the winter wave being an endemic one.

German federal and state governments are now in the midst of lifting the last of the country’s pandemic-related restrictions. Free Covid-19 antigen tests for most people, with exceptions for medical personnel, recently ended.

READ ALSO: Free Covid-19 tests end in Germany

Six federal states – Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg, Hessen, Thuringia, Lower Saxony, and Schleswig-Holstein – have ended mandatory isolation periods for people who test positive for Covid-19.

Bavaria, Saxony-Anhalt, and Schleswig-Holstein have ended the requirement to wear FFP2 masks on public transport, while Berlin, Brandenburg, Saxony, Thuringia, and Mecklenburg-West Pomerania will follow suit on February 2nd.

At that time, the federal government will also drop its requirement for masks to be worn on long-distance trains. Labour Minister Hubertus Heil says that’s when he also intends to exempt workplaces – apart from medical locations – from a mask requirement.

READ ALSO: Germany to drop mask mandate in trains and buses from February 2nd

Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg will also end the requirement for patients to wear a mask in doctor’s offices. That’s a requirement that, so far, will stay in place everywhere else. Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach has also said that he thinks this requirement should remain. 

But some public health insurers and general practitioners are calling for a nationwide end to the obligation for wearing masks in doctor’s offices.

“The pandemic situation is over,” National Association of Statutory Health Physicians (KBV) Chair Andreas Gassen told the RND network. “High-risk patients aren’t treated in all practices. It should generally be left up to medical colleagues to decide whether they want to require masks in their practices.”

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