Kindergartens are reducing their opening hours because too many educators are suffering from Corona.

In the Rhine-Main area, numerous S-Bahn connections were canceled at the beginning of the week because there was a lack of staff.

An S-Bahn cannot be controlled from the home office.

Fraport, one of the largest employers in the region, complains about mass absences of staff due to illness.

Even if the corona measures in everyday life have been reduced to a minimum, the effects of the pandemic can be felt in many places.

For example, when the train doesn't run, the child has to be picked up earlier, the waiter in the restaurant apologizes for the long wait because the colleagues have been absent for days.

Marie Lisa Kehler

Deputy head of the regional section of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

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And the situation in the country's clinics remains tense.

Not necessarily because the number of patients who have to be treated due to corona complaints has increased significantly.

Rather, because the clinic staff is absent due to illness.

A spokesman for the clinic confirms that there are “above-average numbers of staff absences” at the university clinic in Frankfurt due to a corona infection.

This entails an additional burden on the staff in various work areas.

"We currently see guaranteeing medical care in the event of a possible further increase in staff shortages as a central challenge for which we are preparing organizationally."

The ban on visits is only relaxed in exceptional cases

In addition, a slight increase in patients has been registered in the Covid 19 normal ward in the past few weeks, said the spokesman.

In this phase of the pandemic, it has also been confirmed that unvaccinated people and those with known health risk factors are more likely to develop a severe course of the disease.

For a long time, the university hospital was considered to be particularly cautious with regard to visitor regulations during the pandemic.

For a long time, a general ban on visits was imposed, which was only relaxed in exceptional cases.

Currently, visitors who want to enter the university clinic must be fully vaccinated or recovered and also have a current negative test.

In addition, masks are compulsory on the clinic premises.

In the district clinics in the Darmstadt-Dieburg district, stricter measures have been in effect again since this week.

According to the management, a general ban on visits was again imposed to protect patients and staff.

Such a drastic regulation is currently not to be expected at the hospital in Frankfurt-Höchst.

Nevertheless, Hendrik Manner, chief physician at the Clinic for Internal Medicine 2, also confirms that the situation in the vulnerable - i.e. older, multiple ill or previously ill - patient groups has worsened again.

The majority of the normal corona ward is occupied with slightly symptomatic patients who came to the hospital for reasons other than their Covid disease.

A second booster vaccination is currently being advertised to staff to reduce the risk of serious illness.

The Frankfurt Agaplesion Markus Hospital is also feeling the first signs of a corona summer wave.

"Covid infections and the associated quarantines keep occurring among the staff, so that rosters have to be changed at short notice," confirms a spokeswoman.

An increase in patients who come to the hospital due to severe corona symptoms can also be observed.

"Fortunately, most of them can be cared for in the normal ward." The development of the number of cases is being closely monitored, the spokeswoman continued.

“We are always ready to reactivate our structures that have proven themselves in the previous waves.

In general, of course, we are concerned with the uncertainty of what to expect in autumn and winter.”