“The positive rate determined by ALM eV rose significantly and reached 51.9 percent (previous week: 45.6 percent), the highest value since the beginning of the pandemic.
The accredited laboratories in medicine are still of the opinion that not all people suffering from corona are diagnosed with a positive PCR test result. This assumption is also supported by the figures published by the Robert Koch Institute, which suggest that the incidence of infection will increase again.”
The most recent Covid-19 positivity chart available from OWID, shown below, dates back to 27th February 2022 and shows a positivity rate of 47%. These new figures show that positivity is still rising, and has been rising almost continuously since Omicron first swept across Europe in December 2021.
Covid cases in both Germany and the UK are on the rise again.
Outbreak.info are showing three different Omicron variants fighting for dominance in Germany, BA.1, BA.1.1 and BA.2. Click to expand.
The R rate in Germany is back above one, and, disturbingly, the wave frequency seems to have shortened by nearly a month. If the wave frequency compresses, the recovery time for patients between infections is reduced.
We’ll be checking the German newspapers over the next day or so to see what they have to say about the latest rise in Covid cases, and will add a new post here accordingly.
The percent positive is the percentage of all coronavirus tests performed that are actually positive.
The percent positive will be high if the number of positive tests is too high, or if the number of total tests is too low. A higher percent positive suggests higher transmission and that there are likely more people with coronavirus in the community who haven’t been tested yet.
* ALM eV is the professional association of accredited medical laboratories in Germany. The association currently represents over 200 medical laboratories with 900 medical specialists, around 500 scientists and around 25,000 qualified employees.
** This post was originally published on March 8, 2022 **
