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Day after day, the toughest fight in the corona pandemic takes place in the intensive care units.
Here the most seriously ill fight for their lives.
Around 2800 patients with Covid-19 are currently receiving intensive treatment.
Julia Merlot / DER SPIEGEL
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The intensive care physicians urgently warn against letting the numbers jump up again because the staff is already at their limit anyway, they have been working in a state of emergency for a year now.
At the same time, people were promised a lot at the start of the pandemic, including monetary incentives.
Much of it has not come true, which is why there is also frustration and it is hardly reasonable to put an ever greater burden on people.
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But how long will this state of emergency last?
Leading intensive care physicians have made a prognosis with the help of existing data: In their worst-case scenario, they assume an increase in the R-value - i.e. the average number of people infected by an infected person - to 1.2.
For the more contagious virus mutant from Great Britain, the value would increase to 1.55.
Therefore, the medical professionals plead against loosening the current restrictions further in order to prevent such an increase in the R-value.
Because otherwise up to 25,000 Covid patients could end up in the intensive care unit.
Julia Merlot / DER SPIEGEL
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25,000 occupied intensive care beds are an extreme horror scenario.
To put it into perspective: The highest number that we have had so far was 6,000 intensive care patients in Germany.
The total number of beds available is 27,000. That means that the 25,000 would still fit in there.
However, there are not only Covid-19 patients who have to be treated in intensive care units, but also people with other ailments who urgently need intensive care.
This means that with 25,000 Covid-19 intensive care patients, the system would be at the limit and even above, so that the doctors then have to make the bad decision of who they are actually still treating and who are no longer.
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In addition: In the worst-case scenario, the experts are rather optimistic that an average of 230,000 people will be vaccinated every day.
Currently, the vaccination rate is actually only around 150,000 vaccinations per day.
Julia Merlot / DER SPIEGEL
»When it comes to vaccinations, the announcement is: vaccinate, vaccinate, vaccinate. As much, as quickly as possible. Every vaccination counts, even with Astra Zeneca. Because this vaccine also reduces the number of those who become seriously ill and then have to be treated in intensive care units by almost one hundred percent, which of course gives us a massive advantage over the virus. «
In their calculations, the doctors come to the conclusion that postponing the easing until the beginning of April is crucial - because the effect of the vaccinations then precedes the wave of infections.
Then the occupancy rate would also increase, but even in the most unfavorable scenario to only up to 6000 patients, according to the German Interdisciplinary Association for Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine.
Julia Merlot / DER SPIEGEL
“At the same time, however, all of these measures only bring something if everyone participates and you notice that it subsides, that people no longer feel like it. That they want to go out and meet friends, which is understandable. That's why you have to somehow find a middle ground now, to keep people engaged and at the same time not to open too much and destroy everything that the last few months have brought. "
There is a small glimmer of hope: Perhaps warmer temperatures mean that the virus does not spread so easily.
Since the scientists do not know how big this effect could be, the doctors did not include it in their modulation.
