A look at the numbers does not make Gernot Marx very optimistic.

"We are very worried," said the President of the German Interdisciplinary Association for Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine (DIVI) in front of journalists on Monday.

"The corona situation is very worrying and currently not under control." Because not only the number of infections are rising to ever new heights.

For Covid-19 patients, who currently have to be treated in the intensive care units of German hospitals, the curve points steeply upwards - and an end hardly seems in sight.

Kim Bjorn Becker

Editor in politics.

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On Monday, DIVI reported that 3675 corona patients nationwide had to receive intensive care.

A critically high value.

In the past few months, the experts had repeatedly pointed out that from 3000 patients onwards it was getting tight.

Almost 17 percent of all intensive care beds are currently occupied by Covid patients, many of them are not vaccinated.

If the political measures against the spread of the virus do not quickly ease the situation, additional steps will be necessary in December at the latest to break the fourth wave, says Marx.

The situation was just as bad as last winter

"We expect that there will soon be at least 4500 intensive care patients, even if all measures work well," says the intensive care doctor. That would mean that the doctors and nurses would have to care for almost 1,000 more infected people in their wards than they are currently. It is likely that this will happen: the situation in the intensive care units shows, with a delay of two to three weeks, how much the virus is spreading in the country.

The seriously ill Covid patients in the next few weeks are likely to have recently been infected and are developing symptoms these days.

The situation in the hospitals could therefore soon be as bad as last winter, when the hospitals in many places had to postpone other treatments and only accepted Covid patients.

At peak times, 5,762 corona patients were treated in intensive care across Germany.

“We have a picture that reminds us very much of last year,” says Marx.

The number of cases increases again at a time of year when the hospitals are already more crowded than in summer.

"That affects us with reduced capacities, because many nurses have reduced their working hours or left their jobs due to their exhaustion."

So the beds are available, but there is a lack of staff. The hospitals are currently reporting to DIVI about 4,000 fewer operable intensive care beds than a year ago. 19,372 beds are currently occupied and 2705 beds are free on the wards. If necessary, the clinics could provide a further 9,213 beds, but then at the latest the treatment capacities in Germany would be exhausted.

The situation in the clinics differs from region to region.

In Bavaria, the often unvaccinated Covid patients occupied 30 percent of the intensive care beds, in North Rhine-Westphalia ten percent, says Christian Karagiannidis.

The doctor heads the DIVI intensive care register, which gives an overview of the situation in Germany.

The numbers are "closely linked" to the regional vaccination rates, he says.

The hospitals in some regions are already overloaded.

But while vaccinations can be organized comparatively quickly, qualified hospital staff cannot be brought to bed so quickly.