The Erdinger clinic doctors are sounding the alarm because of the steep rise in the number of corona infections: “We are not at the limit, but already far above,” said Rainald Kaube, the medical director of hospital coordination for the three districts of Erding, Freising and Ebersberg, at a press conference in Court House. “It is foreseeable that we will soon no longer be able to offer the standard of intensive care treatment as we are now,” said Lorenz Bott-Flügel, the medical director of the Erding Clinic. “It is still possible, we can still care for the patients,” said Michaela Zylka, the nursing director of the district hospital – but soon the work will no longer be possible without additional specialists.
From Monday to Tuesday, 98 new corona infections were reported to the district office. “The situation in the district of Erding has reached a sad climax,” said District Administrator Martin Bayerstorfer (CSU). The seven-day incidence on Monday was 510.5 according to the calculation by the Robert Koch Institute, the previous day the value was 391.7. However, Peter Stadick, who heads the health care department in the district office, calculated that with an average of 100 new corona cases per day, the incidence value in the Erding district will be 700 this week. The 98 new corona cases from Tuesday occurred nationwide in 24 of 26 municipalities in the district. “We have no special hotspot,” said Stadick, no community, no company and no facility stand out with a conspicuously high number of new infections.
The doctors at the Erding Clinic are not interested in where their Covid 19 patients come from. Rather, they are concerned about how to treat them if their disease worsens. Rainald Kaube pointed out that in the three district clinics in his area of responsibility, all beds in the intensive care units have been occupied since November 1st. Transfers to other hospitals are hardly possible because the situation is similar everywhere in the Free State. “We are worse off than in the previous three waves,” said Kaube. In view of the lack of qualified intensive care nurses, it will soon be impossible to build up further capacities. Hospital director Dirk Last reported that two additional ventilation places had been set up in the Erding Clinic in addition to the ten existing ventilation places. But Kaube apparently sees even more need. The anesthetist and intensive care doctor assured that “every patient will continue to receive care”. However, it is becoming increasingly difficult “to maintain the required standard”.
Nadia Fusarri, department head in the Erding district office, said the biggest task of the pandemic crisis team, which has been meeting every day since last Wednesday, is to recruit more staff. There is currently a request from the German Armed Forces. At the moment, however, it looks like this: “We are currently completely on our own.”
Lorenz Bott-Flügel made his annoyance about the extremely challenging situation for the clinic staff very clear. The sharp increase in the number of infections and the looming overloading of the hospitals, “none of this is in any way surprising”. The fourth wave could have been stopped in late summer, now it is too late. You can only try to “navigate” and hope that it will somehow work. “But I don’t have a lot of illusions,” said Bott-Flügel. Once again he repeated which means were necessary with the current drama: “There is no way out of the pandemic except further vaccinations.”
In the district of Erding, 63.9 percent of the population are fully vaccinated, according to the district office. In the past four weeks, the vaccination rate has only increased by two percentage points. The number of vaccinations has only increased somewhat due to the tightened corona rules. Lorenz Bott-Flügel, however, made a very cautious calculation: Even if there were only 10,000 people in the district who were not immunized, sooner or later they would become infected with the corona virus. Ten percent of them, i.e. 1000 people, would then end up in hospital with a difficult course. Faced with this prospect, the clinic staff “is beginning to lose understanding”.