The fourth corona wave is in full swing, the number of infections is rising explosively.
The intensive care physician and DiVi director Karagiannidis therefore calls for tough rules for the workplace.
Berlin - Experts are concerned about the current corona situation in Germany. Christian Karagiannidis, the scientific director of the intensive care register of the German Interdisciplinary Association for Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine (DIVI), advocates additional measures. "We just have too many unvaccinated people in total," he explained in an interview with the Tagesthemen. Not even 70 percent of Germans are currently fully vaccinated, which is far too little for herd immunity. That alone contributes significantly to the fully occupied intensive care units, says Karagiannidis.
Currently around ten percent of intensive care beds are still available across Germany - very little.
If the availability drops regionally below five percent, one is no longer able to act.
“That will overtake us relatively quickly in the next few weeks and months, at least in the hotspots of Bavaria, Saxony and Thuringia,” he predicted.
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“The only thing we can do is limit regular operations,” he emphasizes.
Everywhere where particularly few people are vaccinated, such as in southern Bavaria or Saxony, this restriction will not be avoided.
The long-term pandemic has also worsened the care crisis significantly.
Believe it or not, 3,000 ventilation beds were lost within a year because there was a shortage of staff “everywhere”.
"We can neither bake well-trained nurses, nor can we conjure them up at short notice," said Karagiannidis.
The consequence of this is that you have to move to the clinic and drop out of regular operations.
This is the only way to care for the patients.
Non-vital operations are postponed to free up staff for intensive care.
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But that is not enough in the long term, according to Karagiannidis.
“What we need is 2G and 3G in the workplace,” demanded the doctor.
That had an effect on the first vaccination rate in Europe, as has been observed.
Booster vaccinations must also be promoted as quickly as possible.
Even with these measures, however, the fourth wave cannot be expected to end anytime soon.
Because there will be no more contact restrictions for vaccinated people this year.
It is not yet known exactly how much the measures can take effect.
You “navigate a bit in the fog” and don't know exactly when and whether the curve will go down again.
The head of virology at the Charité clinic, Christian Dorsten, shared the gloomy assessment of the situation.
In the NDR podcast Coronavirus Update, he said that 2G and 3G alone will not be enough to get the rising numbers of infections under control.
(jv)