German intensive care physicians are demanding lockdown by the end of March

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The German Interdisciplinary Association for Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine (DIVI) spoke out on Thursday in favor of extending the lockdown to April 1.

In future, easing measures should no longer be decided on the basis of the seven-day incidence but rather the R-value.

It is not advisable to open it on March 8, otherwise the third wave with a peak of around 25,000 patients in the intensive care units will come in June.

However, this horror scenario assumes that the R value remains at 1.2 and that the vaccinations for over-35-year-olds drag on until mid-August.

The DIVI calculated this using a prognosis model with three scenarios, the vaccination strategy and the virus mutant B.1.1.7 were also included.

“If we open on April 1st, we have enough time to vaccinate the elderly.

Then we can successfully contain the pandemic, "said DIVI President Gernot Marx.

Containment is only possible if at least 80 percent of Germans get vaccinated in order to establish herd immunity.

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If the vaccinations of the over-35-year-olds are completed by the end of June and the R-value is kept at or below 1, easing measures would lead to a peak value of a maximum of 3400 intensive care patients from March 8th.

On Wednesday evening, according to the RKI, the R value is 0.98.

According to the model, the worst situation would be a relaxation at the beginning of March, as the federal and state governments plan to discuss next Wednesday (March 3rd).

If the measures were maintained until April, the infection rate would continue to flatten - also because the vaccination campaign would then be further advanced.

“Certainly some will be shocked when the DIVI calls for a lockdown by April.

But the German health system can hardly control 25,000 patients, ”said ex-DIVI President Uwe Janssens.

But a renewed wave would also mean having to postpone other operations on non-corona patients.

"Even the employees in the intensive care units would not be able to cope with this."

“It's about three, a maximum of four weeks of discipline.

The current situation is about whether we will become exponential again and how much exponential ”, said Professor Christian Karagiannidis, head of the DIVI intensive care register.

"Either we lose in stoppage time or we win." As early as December, the intensive care physicians had positioned themselves early on as supporters of the tough lockdown that followed.