Nobody wants to hear it, but experts warn urgently against loosening.
To open it now backfires from their point of view.
Munich - Germany has been in lockdown since November.
Life is on pause.
That pulls.
Discussions about easing already flared up before the Corona summit on March 3rd.
Because, the number of corona cases is increasing again.
Not a good sign.
In addition, the corona mutations are spreading.
The share of the British mutation is already over 20 percent.
Germany's intensive care physicians are alarmed.
"We demand a continuation of the lockdown measures until April 1st," said DIVI boss Prof. Dr.
med.
Gernot Marx at a video switch on Thursday.
"Otherwise the 3rd wave will be very difficult or impossible to control at all." It is important that the R-value must not exceed 1.
Gernot Marx, President of the Interdisciplinary Association for Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine (DIVI), substantiates his demands with different scenarios of a new prognosis model.
Relevant factors for the utilization of the intensive care units are the spread of the British corona mutation B.1.1.7 and the speed at which people over 35 years of age are vaccinated.
Relaxations?
Forecast model predicts bad scenario
In the new DIVI prognosis model, the intensive care physicians have calculated what could happen as early as March 7th in the event of relaxation:
In the worst scenario, opening in March could cause the numbers of seriously ill Covid 19 patients to explode: According to the prognosis of the German intensive care physicians, 25,000 corona patients can be expected in the intensive care unit as early as mid-May.
For comparison: According to DIVI boss Marx, the peak in intensive care units was 6,000 patients in January, currently 2,900.
This number of intensive care patients corresponds to the peak of the first wave in spring.
Lockdown or relaxation - R-value of 1.2 shows drastic consequences in the intensive care units
In this unfavorable scenario, an R value of 1.2 for the so-called wild type - the original Sars-CoV-2 virus - was used.
So the value that we had in Germany just before Christmas.
For the British corona mutation, the scientists assumed an R value of 1.55.
In the case of vaccinations, an average of 230,000 per day.
"In the absence of vaccination protection, the infection would just go through," said Prof. Dr.
Christian Karagiannidis in the video desk.
For comparison: According to the Federal Ministry of Health, an average of 152,179 vaccinations are carried out per day - as of March 1st.
"The graphics frighten you at first, but we are able to control the corona pandemic," said DIVI boss Prof. Gernot Marx.
In the opinion of the intensive care physicians, a loosening in April or even later would bring prospects.
The situation in the clinics would be manageable.
The wave of corona infections precedes the wave of vaccinations, as Karagiannidis describes it.
According to the model calculations, a later opening strategy could delay and even slow it down.
"Three weeks of discipline between March 7th and April 1st decide the match in stoppage time," said Christian Karagiannidis, head of the DIVI intensive register.
In the opinion of the medical professionals, an important point in opening strategies is the R-value and control.
According to Marx, the forecast model is a robust tool.
It works, the previous forecasts for the utilization of the intensive care beds would have shown that.
The model calculations also assume that a constant vaccination rate per age group is maintained.
And that a corona vaccination 100 percent protects against a "severe, intensive-care disease course".
In doing so, the modelers refer to the state of the art.
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The graphic shows various scenarios: Intensive bed occupancy when the R value for the wild type is checked by 1 (= 1.35 for B 1.1.7) depending on the time of relaxation when the R value of 1 for the WT is reached.
© Divi forecast model
According to the DIVI prognosis model, a lockdown until the beginning of April would bring 5,000 Covid-19 patients to the intensive care unit in mid-May.
But then the wave of vaccinations has a better chance of pushing itself in front of the wave of infection (see DIVI graphic).
According to the model, an opening after April 21 would be even more helpful.
Then there would only be around 2,500 corona patients in the intensive care units in mid-May (see DIVI graphic).
Here you can find our news ticker on the subject of Corona in Germany.
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