Twelve cases of coronavirus in the Rhein-Sieg district "The infection window is now open"
Rhein-Sieg district · The official number of people who have been infected with the coronavirus continues to rise in the Rhein-Sieg district. On Tuesday afternoon, twelve cases were already known. The District Administrator expects the number to continue to increase further.
The number of cases tested positive for SARS-CoV2 in the Rhein-Sieg district has continued to rise. As the district administration announced on Tuesday, twelve people are currently ill with the coronavirus, 112 are in domestic isolation. District Administrator Sebastian Schuster expects the number to rise even further. "The lady who tested positive in Siegburg was on the road a lot, had more than 100 contacts", said Schuster. "And she infected others," added Rainer Meilicke, head of the district health department. In the meantime, a total of four Siegburgers have tested positive for the virus. There are two cases in Much, one each in Alfter, Bornheim, Königswinter, Lohmar and Troisdorf.
"The infection window is now open", said Meilicke. After there had initially only been primary cases that had been infected outside the Rhein-Sieg district, there are now the first secondary cases. "We can no longer stop the process. The aim is to slow it down by naming, identifying and breaking chains of infection," said Schuster. The effort is enormous.
Just to identify the 100 contacts of the local politician from Siegburg took a total of 50 working hours. "In the meantime, we are no longer able to provide information on suspected cases or the number of contacts," Schuster continued. The circle advises all contact persons to have themselves tested.
In order to create sufficient possibilities for this, the Circle worked "at full speed" on Tuesday to set up two so-called smear centres, i.e. places where contact persons can be tested, according to Schuster. Already on Wednesday, such a centre is to be set up at a convenient location on the right bank of the Rhine. One is also being planned for the left bank of the Rhine.
According to Rainer Meilicke, the medical practices in the region are full. "So far, no practice has had to be closed", the head of the district health office assured. The doctors would know how to protect themselves. Some practices had already divided their consultation hours. This means, for example, that infectious cases are treated in the afternoon and all others in the morning. The demand for protective equipment is still high. "We must now see when we will receive the protective masks ordered by the state of North Rhine-Westphalia", Meilicke said.
(Original text: Nadine Quadt; Translation: Mareike Graepel)
