German Chancellor Angela Merkel is going into home quarantine immediately, after a doctor who gave her a vaccination on Friday has tested positive for coronavirus, Merkel’s spokesman Steffen Seibert announced in a press statement on Sunday.
Seibert also stated that the chancellor will continuously be tested for coronavirus because a test at this early stage would not be reliable. Merkel will continue her full workload from her quarantine, Seibert added.
Earlier Sunday: Germany has implemented a “contact ban” rather than a full nationwide lockdown in an effort to curb the spread of coronavirus, Merkel said.
Merkel said in a press conference Sunday that the country would toughen measures and “reduce contact with people as much as possible.”
New York-Presbyterian performed more than 500 tests for the novel coronavirus Saturday, and 50% came out positive.
“That’s very high,” Chief Operating Officer Dr. Laura L. Forese said in a leadership briefing Sunday.
Forese said the hospitals had 558 Covid-19 inpatients, and about 1 in 5 are receiving ICU care.
That number “is a snapshot. It’s changing probably as I’m speaking to you today,” she said. “We have many more who have been sent home, either Covid-positive tested, or presumed to have that.”
Like other healthcare systems around the country, New York-Presbyterian is not able to test every patient for Covid-19, citing a shortage of swab kits.
Of nearly 30,000 cases in the United States, more than 15,000 are in New York State, including more than 9,000 in New York City.