Returners only play a subordinate role in Germany when it comes to the corona pandemic. This emerges from the figures published by the Robert Koch Institute earlier this week. Accordingly, the proportion of travelers who imported infections into the Federal Republic even fell.

Based on the total proportion of new infections that the Robert Koch Institute has evaluated, seven percent of the cases are due to travelers from abroad. This means that they do not play a significant role in the epidemiological situation in the Federal Republic of Germany. Returnees from Turkey rank at the top of those people who nevertheless tested positive after a stay abroad. Other countries that the RKI lists as likely infection countries for return travelers are the Czech Republic, Romania, countries of the Western Balkans, Austria and France. However, the vast majority of infections take place within the Federal Republic of Germany and cannot be traced back to people who have stayed abroad.

In view of this finding, which the state Robert Koch Institute makes in the latest report, the compulsory quarantine planned by Germany for all people who have stayed in a risk area defined by the RKI appears extremely questionable. The Federal Republic of Germany plans that quarantine will have to be started from October 15, 2020 if you have previously stayed in a risk area. If there is a negative PCR result that is not older than 48 hours, the secretion takes five days. If not, you are not allowed to leave your own apartment for ten days, but you can “free yourself” from the quarantine on the fifth day at the earliest. Airlines, airports, IATA and other interest groups are storming against this planned regulation.

RKI: Positive PCR test says nothing about the infectiousness

In the epidemiological bulletin 39/2020, the Robert Koch Institute questions the informative value of positive PCR tests as proof of infectiousness: “As the gold standard in virus diagnostics, PCR tests can be performed with high precision and low detection limits for genomic SARS - Apply CoV-2 RNA in clinical samples. Evidence of the SARS-CoV-2 genome does not, however, provide direct evidence of a patient's ability to be infected. In vitro data indicate a ratio of 10: 1 to 100: 1 between genomic RNA and infectious virus particles. "

The RKI also writes in the same bulletin: “In contrast to replication-capable viruses, the RNA of SARS-CoV-2 can be detected in many patients by means of a PCR test even weeks after the onset of symptoms. The fact that these positive PCR results cannot be equated with infectiousness in recovered patients has been shown in several analyzes in which SARS-CoV-2 was grown in cell culture parallel to the PCR test. "