In the Free State, the incidence values have risen significantly in the past few days; according to the Robert Koch Institute, the nationwide value is now 16.1. So far, however, this development has not had a significant impact on the occupancy of the Bavarian intensive care units. The beds there are still only occupied to an average of two percent with seriously ill Covid 19 patients. This came out on Tuesday from the so-called DIVI intensive register, which shows the current bed use nationwide.
This confirms the forecasts of experts who assumed weeks ago that the number of hospital occupations will no longer be comparable with those of previous corona waves. This is also not the case because most of the people who are at risk, such as the elderly, are now vaccinated. According to Roland Engehausen, the managing director of the Bavarian Hospital Society, the increased incidence values are reflected “only very, very slightly” in the bed occupancy of intensive care units in the Free State. “At the moment we have a slight increase in treatment cases in the hospitals, but at a very low level. That is not a problem at all at the moment.”
Even in the Lower Franconian city of Aschaffenburg, in which the 7-day incidence according to the State Office for Health and Food Safety (LGL) is the highest nationwide at 53.52, according to a clinic spokeswoman, only two of the approximately 40 intensive care beds are with Covid- 19 patients occupied. “At the beginning of January we treated 21 such patients in intensive care,” she said when asked. It has been noticeable for a good two or three months now that the average age of seriously ill corona cases has been falling.
“Basically, we see a trend towards younger and above all Covid-unvaccinated patients,” says Kliniken Südostbayern AG. According to LGL, the 7-day incidence in the Berchtesgadener Land district is second in Bavaria at 50, 98. However, so far this has also had little impact on the occupancy of the intensive care beds with Covid 19 patients. “Up-to-date there are two Covid-sick patients in the intensive care unit – one of them from the Berchtesgadener Land district, one from the Traunstein district. The age of those affected is 43 years and 58 years respectively. Two more were on an isolation ward on Tuesday Covid-19 patients from the Berchtesgadener Land district.
Health Minister Klaus Holetschek (CSU) meanwhile focuses on caring for people with long-term corona consequences. On Tuesday he obtained information from Long Covid basic researchers at the Max Planck Institute (MPI) in Erlangen. The basic research carried out at the MPI has produced “promising results” on the causes of post-Covid symptoms – symptoms that can develop during or after a Covid 19 illness. For example, through the physical characterization of blood cells, it was possible to quickly “detect functional changes in these cells,” as the Ministry of Health says.
Christina Haubrich, the health policy spokeswoman for the Landtag Greens, demands: “Bavaria finally needs early warning systems such as wastewater monitoring, which can detect the course of the pandemic and the spread of new virus variants at an early stage.” There is also an urgent need for “better contact tracking even with higher incidences” and a review of the quarantine requirements in schools.