Status: 12.10.2022 06:58 a.m
The German Hospital Society has warned of the clinics being overloaded due to the increasing number of new corona infections. Added to this were staff shortages. The number of intensive care patients is increasing nationwide.
In view of the increasing number of corona infections, the German Hospital Society (DKG) has warned against overloading the clinics. “We have significant growth in Covid-positive patients. Compared to the previous week, occupancy has increased by 50 percent,” said CEO Gerald Gass to the editorial network Germany. “With around 19,000 patients who tested positive, we are currently as high as at the peak of the summer wave.” The DKG boss warned: “We are heading towards extremely difficult weeks across the board and not just in southern Germany.”
Staff shortages and increased protection against infection
Additional problems caused the hospitals the high staff shortages caused by Corona and other respiratory diseases. The increase in Covid patients also means greater effort to protect against infection – “and thus more work, so again a higher burden for the staff”.
Gass spoke of a “devastating triad” of staff shortages, economic pressure from inflation and bureaucracy. “All of this will lead to hospitals postponing services and having to temporarily deregister departments.”
He does not expect the personnel situation to relax as a result of the adapted corona vaccine, as it “mainly protects against severe courses, but not against infection” and thus does not prevent staff shortages.
The number of intensive care patients is increasing
The number of corona infections in Germany is increasing again. According to the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), the nationwide seven-day incidence of new infections was 799.9 in the morning. This is evident from numbers that reflect the status of the RKI dashboard at 5 a.m. The day before, the value of new corona infections per 100,000 inhabitants and week was 787.5 (previous week: 414.0; previous month: 216.0). The number of intensive care patients is also increasing nationwide.
However, this information only provides a very incomplete picture of the number of infections. Experts have been assuming for some time that there will be a large number of cases not recorded by the RKI – mainly because not all infected people have a PCR test done. Only positive PCR tests count in the statistics. In addition, late registrations or transmission problems can lead to a distortion of individual daily values.
The health authorities in Germany recently reported 136,748 new corona infections (previous week: 133,532) and 199 deaths (previous week: 128) to the RKI within one day. Here, too, comparisons of the data are only possible to a limited extent due to the test behavior, late registrations or transmission problems.
The RKI has counted 34,257,916 infections with Sars-CoV-2 since the beginning of the pandemic. The actual total number is likely to be significantly higher, as many infections go undetected.