More and more patients
World medical chief Montgomery sounds the alarm: “We are all preparing for a triage”
“We are all preparing for a triage”: Frank Ulrich Montgomery, President of the German Medical Association and the German Medical Association, sounds the alarm
© Guido Kirchner / DPA
Patients have to be relocated, the number of infections is constantly breaking records, and the situation is worsening in schools. The Bundeswehr wants to help overburdened hospitals. The corona situation is coming to a head.
The situation in hospitals is worsening dramatically in view of the rapidly increasing number of people infected with corona. The chairman of the World Medical Association, Frank Ulrich Montgomery, sounded the alarm: “We are all preparing for a triage,” said Montgomery to the newspapers of the Funke media group (Friday). The doctors did everything they could to avert this last dire decision. “But with the number of infections rising, clinics need to prepare,” said Montgomery.
What triage means
Triage means that medical professionals must decide who to help first due to scarce resources. This Friday (9 a.m.) the German Interdisciplinary Association for Intensive and Emergency Medicine (DIVI) wants to express itself at an online press conference on the prioritization and triage of Covid-19.
The Robert Koch Institute also registered a high of 76,414 new corona infections in 24 hours on Friday. The RKI gave the seven-day incidence of 438.2 – also a maximum. On Thursday, the number of people who died with or with a proven infection with Sars-CoV-2 rose to more than 100,000. The acting Federal Minister of Health Jens Spahn (CDU) and RKI President Lothar Wieler want to comment on the corona situation at the federal press conference in Berlin this Friday (10:00 a.m.).
Bundeswehr wants to relieve hospitals
In order to relieve the clinics, the Bundeswehr is preparing flights for the transfer of intensive care patients from Friday. The Air Force has two aircraft ready for the relief mission. As part of the so-called cloverleaf system, Covid 19 patients should be able to be distributed nationwide if hospitals are threatened with collapse in individual regions. Occasionally, patients were brought to other federal states on Thursday, for example from Thuringia to Lower Saxony. Montgomery doesn’t go far enough. He calls for the transfer of sick people to other European countries: “The systematic transfer of Covid patients abroad must now be initiated. The Bundeswehr must also help with this.”
The chairman of the board of the German Hospital Society (DKG), Gerald Gaß, complained about the effects of canceled operations. The consequences for patients beyond the pandemic are as dramatic as they are tragic. 75 percent of all hospital locations with intensive care units today reported only limited operation. “Specifically, this means that, as in January 2021, we will again not be able to care for almost every third patient in the regular system,” he wrote in a guest post for the “Rheinische Post” (Friday). “We will perform around 20 percent fewer operations on colon cancer and around seven percent fewer operations on women with breast cancer,” wrote Gass. The situation of being put on a waiting list is difficult to bear mentally and physically for every single cancer patient.
Split population
The current regulations for combating corona are met with a mixed response among citizens. According to the “Deutschlandtrend” for the ARD “Morgenmagazin”, 53 percent of the population consider the new Infection Protection Act to be correct without the possibility of lockdowns, school closings or curfews. According to the survey, 40 percent think it’s wrong.
The aspect of school closings in particular could become important. According to the weekly report from the Robert Koch Institute on Thursday evening, there are again significantly more corona outbreaks in schools. “After a brief decline during the autumn break, a very rapid increase is now being observed.” Accordingly, 1265 outbreaks were last reported within four weeks, it said. The last two weeks are not yet assessable. On average, it hits younger students more often than older ones.
Currently, the number of corona outbreaks in schools is “very clearly” above the maximum level of the second wave. At the beginning of November, around three times more outbreaks were reported per week than in the previous year at this time. “Given the increased frequency of outbreaks, the easier transferability of the delta variant and the expanded test activities are likely to play a role, with infections, including asymptomatic ones, being detected at an early stage.”
In the fourth corona wave, according to the RKI, there are a particularly large number of positive corona proofs on children and adolescents. The seven-day incidence in the week up to last Sunday was more than twice as high in the 5 to 9 year olds (829) and in the 10 to 14 year olds (921) as the average for the population (414). However, students are also tested for Corona particularly frequently.