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For the first time since its introduction in May, the Berlin Corona traffic light also turned red for the criterion of intensive care bed occupancy.

With 320 with Covid-19 patients, 25.3 percent of the beds in intensive care units are occupied.

That comes from the Corona situation report published on Sunday by the health administration for Saturday.

The mark from which the traffic light is red is 25 percent.

With the number of cases per 100,000 inhabitants over the past seven days, the traffic light system has been showing red for some time.

In the event of two red lights, the Senate had agreed that this would mean a need for action.

The corona measures were tightened again from the beginning of October after the values ​​for the number of cases and the number of reproductions (R value) had slipped into the red.

Health Senator Dilek Kalayci warned of overburdening the hospitals.

"The persistently high number of infections is leading to an increasing utilization of intensive care beds for more and more seriously ill Covid 19 patients," tweeted the SPD politician via her agency's account.

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"As a precaution, we controlled the capacities in Berlin at an early stage so that worse things can be prevented so far," said Kalayci.

In the hospital landscape, the situation is also worsening because staff are absent due to the corona.

The health senator appealed to spare the employees in the hospitals overload.

Kalayci asked people to wear a mask, to refrain from any non-mandatory contact and to keep their distance.

The R value, which provides information about the dynamics of the infection process, was the only one of the three indicators of the traffic light system in the green area in the past few days.

It is currently at 0.82.

According to the Robert Koch Institute, in order to break the wave, values ​​well below 1 would have to be achieved over a long period of time - this means that an infected person infects less than another person.

Rapid climb in November

The number of Covid-19 patients who are treated in intensive care units rose very quickly at times.

On November 3, in the management report, the occupancy rate exceeded 15 percent for the first time with 17.1 percent, which corresponds to a yellow light.

Just a week earlier, the occupancy was around 9 percent.

Recently the increase has been slower.

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According to the health administration as of November 6, there are currently around 1,500 intensive care beds available in the hospitals.

Another 400 could therefore be occupied with previously unused ventilators in the event of a worsening situation.

In order to have more beds available and to be able to shift staff, the emergency hospitals have been called upon to postpone planned interventions since November 7th.

Most recently, there was less concern about the availability of beds, ventilators and protective clothing - what they feared was a shortage of nursing staff.

Caring for Covid 19 patients is considered to be costly, and infections and quarantine cases are also feared in the ranks of the nursing staff.

In order to be prepared for such situations, hospitals recently launched a call that former and freely available registered nurses should apply.

At the same time it was emphasized that one is well prepared and that the conditions are better than in spring.

More Covid-19 intensive care patients are currently being treated in Berlin than during the first phase of the pandemic, as the Divi Register shows: The highest level at that time was reached in April with around 150 cases.

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According to the health administration, the treatment center built on the exhibition grounds in spring, which has been on standby with 488 beds since then, is used when Berlin's hospitals are overloaded with non-intensive care Covid 19 cases.

Primarily people with easier courses should be treated there.

When it could start is open.

“The situation is being carefully monitored.

The Berlin Senate will decide in due course, ”the health administration recently announced.

A nationwide emergency plan provides that Covid-19 intensive care patients could also be distributed to other federal states.

Berlin forms a network with Brandenburg, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia: those affected could be transferred between these federal states in order to prevent overloading of certain hospitals and regions.