The number of Covid 19 patients treated nationwide in intensive care units rose to over 1000 for the first time in the fourth Corona wave. In the Divi Register daily report on Sunday, 1008 Covid 19 patients were reported in intensive care, 485 of whom had to be ventilated. Most recently, a value of over 1000 was recorded in the daily report from June 18 (1011). The low before the fourth wave flared up was 354 in the July 22nd report, and occupancy has been increasing again since then.
On August 29th last year, the number was just 241 (134 ventilated); it was not until the end of October that it had risen to over 1000 in the course of the second wave. In contrast to the previous year, senior citizens are no longer primarily affected: Almost every tenth Covid-19 patient currently being treated in intensive care units is 30 to 39 years old, according to the data in the Divi Register, and just under every fifth 40 to 49 years (status 26.08., Updated every Thursday). The 50 to 59 year olds make up a quarter of the patients, the 60 to 69 year olds a good fifth. Unvaccinated people are mostly affected by severe courses and deaths.
The proportion of Covid 19 patients in the total number of intensive care beds is currently particularly high in North Rhine-Westphalia (6.4 percent) and Saarland (5.3 percent). Even if the seven-day incidence of new infections did not increase or even decrease in the coming days, the number of Covid 19 patients treated in intensive care units would initially continue to increase. The incidence of infection is always reflected with a delay in clinic occupancy, because usually around 10 days pass between infection and admission.
The Divi-Register is managed by the German Interdisciplinary Association for Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine together with the Robert Koch Institute (RKI).
The maximum value for the number of Covid-19 patients recorded in the intensive care unit was a good 5700 at the beginning of January in the course of the second corona wave in Germany.
The seven-day incidence of new infections has been increasing for weeks
According to the German Hospital Association (DKG), around 5,000 cases nationwide are considered the load limit for the clinics, whereby operations that can already be planned would then be postponed.
However, there are currently very large differences in the infection rate in the individual federal states and regions.
A regional view of the characteristic values of the infection rate and the clinic occupancy will therefore be decisive for corona measures.
The seven-day incidence of new infections has been increasing for weeks, but in the last few days it has not been as strong as before at times. According to the RKI on Sunday, it was 74.1 - the previous day the value was 72.1, a week ago it was 54.5. The health authorities in Germany reported 8,416 new corona infections and 12 deaths to the RKI within one day.