Saarbrücken (dpa/lhe) – According to the Saarland Minister of Health Magnus Jung (SPD), the southwest of Germany with Hesse is currently particularly affected by corona infections. “Apparently there is currently a risk of infection in the southwest that is more dynamic than is the case in other parts of the republic,” he said in Saarbrücken on Tuesday.
The Saarland currently has the highest value of the 16 federal states in terms of corona incidence. The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) in Berlin recorded a seven-day incidence of 561.2 new infections per 100,000 inhabitants for the country on Tuesday. According to the RKI, Hesse is in 2nd place with an incidence of 436.5, Rhineland-Palatinate in 3rd place with 430.7. The nationwide average on Tuesday was 334.9.
If you go back over the past two and a half years, there has never been a situation with a really even infection rate in Germany, said the minister. “But it was always the case that sometimes one region and later another region was the hotspot.” For a long time, the numbers “balanced out quite well”. However, the Saarland Minister of Health does not see any reason for concern. From the outset, the numbers “must be taken with a grain of salt” and are not valid because they are only based on PCR tests. “We don’t know, for example, how high the proportion of people in other federal states is who also do a PCR test if a rapid test is positive. In Saarland, there seem to be quite a few,” said Jung.