Ulrike Gote, Gesundheitssenatorin von Berlin
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In light of the Coronavirus infection rates, Berlin's Senator for Health Ulrike Gote advises Berliners to exercise caution.
We are not yet at the point where we can say: We can let it go now," she told the newspaper Berliner Zeitung. "We need to exercise caution so that not everyone gets sick at the same time, in order to ensure that the critical infrastructure is kept running." Not all vulnerable groups are well protected, she said. "We still have the chronically ill, including people who can't get vaccinated because of a weak immune system," she said in the interview (Feb. 1, 2022). "And we also see that the booster shots are already wearing off for the elderly."
The goal is still to prevent and avoid infections, she said. "But you have to take note that with the infectivity of Omicron, that's not as easy as it was with the other variants. Now it's a matter of avoiding infections and slowing the down the rising rates as best as we can." To assess the pandemic, Gote looks at different numbers. She usually checks the figures from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) before she gets up, and she usually already has the situation report from the State Office for Health and Social Affairs before eight. So does she still trust the incidence values? "You can never look at the incidence value without classification," she said.
"Knowing that health departments have yet to enter a five-digit amount of findings, as is often the case right now because of the high number of new infections, I know that the real case numbers are much higher." Exactly how high is speculation, she said. Gote also looks at the hospital occupancy rates. "And what's the trend there? That's almost the more important information to me."