330 firefighters infected with Coronavirus or in quarantine

Employees of the Berlin Fire Department are also affected by Coronavirus.

173 employees infected with Coronavirus

330 firefighters or other employees are unable to work at the moment. 173 are infected and 157 are in quarantine, according to the fire department. In total, the Berlin Fire Department employs about 6000 people - 4500 at the professional fire department and 1500 at the volunteer fire departments.

Police declare "pandemic level 1"

Berlin police had declared "pandemic level 1" on Monday (Jan. 17, 2022) and set up a Coronavirus crisis unit. Due to Covid infections and quarantine, 800 police officers and other employees are currently absent from work. Including other illness-related absences, more than 15 percent of the total of 26,000 police officers and police employees were absent. This first of three pandemic stages involves substitution arrangements within the police force and the temporary halting of training courses.

"The Berlin Fire Department's vaccination rate is currently over 80 percent."

The fire department has set up a four-tier model that comes into effect when 15 percent of the staff are absent. However, this is allegedly not yet the case. All firefighters must be vaccinated at least twice by March 15, or once by January 30. The fire department did not say whether that rate is likely to be met and simply stated: "The vaccination rate of the Berlin Fire Department is currently over 80 percent." Reportedly, the fire department offers all available measures to increase the vaccination rate even more.

Berlin Senate establishes monitoring of critical infrastructures

The Senate wants to monitor the impact of the pandemic on the work of the police, the judiciary system, the fire department, schools, transport, electricity and water utilities, and the health care system more closely. "That's why we decided to set up a new monitoring system to assess the functioning of critical infrastructure," Governing Mayor Franziska Giffey (SPD) said on Tuesday.

The aim is to obtain a regular picture of the situation in the individual fields and institutions in order to determine how well they are functioning. Similar to the Senate's Coronavirus warning light, a traffic light system used to assess the development: Green means no impairment, yellow means minor impairment, and red stands for significant or critical impairment.