Status: 08/15/2022 4:30 p.m
The number of corona sick leave among those insured with Barmer Krankenkasse has increased by 175 percent within a few weeks. The values suggest a high number of unreported cases – Health Minister Lauterbach had already said this.
The number of sick leave with a corona infection has continued to rise despite declining incidences – this was reported by the Barmer replacement fund. According to this, in the week from July 17 to 23, 2022, around 67,800 employees with a Covid 19 infection were unable to work. This corresponds to an increase of around 175 percent compared to the week from May 29 to June 4, 2022 with 24,600 sick leave.
According to the health insurance company, sick leave is increasingly approaching its peak during the fifth wave in the spring of this year. At its peak, up to 88,600 people eligible for sick pay were unable to work in the week of March 27-April 2.
Big regional differences
According to the Barmer analysis, there are massive regional differences in corona sick leave: Lower Saxony was most recently affected. Here the number of sick leave with Corona between July 17th and 23rd was well above the national average.
In second and third place were Hesse and Rhineland-Palatinate with 235 and 223 per 10,000 beneficiaries of sick pay who were on sick leave with Corona. Saxony brought up the rear: with 124 per 10,000 beneficiaries, it was significantly lower.
Fewer confirmed PCR tests are included in statistics
The increase indicates a high number of unreported cases of corona infections. The reason for this could be that more and more people are refraining from checking a positive rapid corona test using a PCR test. But only infections confirmed with a PCR test are included in the official corona statistics of the Robert Koch Institute (RKI).
Health Minister Karl Lauterbach said last Friday that the peak of the corona summer wave had been passed nationwide. There is a “robust decline in the number of cases,” said the SPD politician. But he also pointed out that the number of unreported infections is currently increasing. There is no reason to give the all-clear anyway, since “a sharp increase in the number of cases” can be expected again in autumn.
Hundreds of thousands of packs of Paxlovid are at risk of being destroyed
Meanwhile, the corona drug Paxlovid has proven to be a slow seller: due to low demand, there is a risk of hundreds of thousands of packs of the drug being destroyed in Germany. This emerges from a response from the Federal Ministry of Health to a parliamentary question by the CSU health politician Stephan Pilsinger, as reported by the RND newspapers.
According to this, 460,000 of the one million packs ordered have so far been delivered to wholesalers. “Of these, 280,000 will reach their expiry date by February 2023,” said Edgar Franke, State Secretary for Health. A possible extension of the shelf life of the drug is being examined.
The drug from the US pharmaceutical company Pfizer is intended to help prevent severe corona courses. According to estimates, however, it has only been prescribed around 30,000 times in Germany, as the RND newspapers further reported.