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The RS virus is currently spreading rapidly
Photo: Milorad Kravic / iStockphoto / Getty Images
Many children's practices and children's wards are currently overcrowded.
The respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is causing an enormous wave of infection, and the children's hospitals, which have been underfunded for years and understaffed due to a lack of staff, are at their limit.
The weekly report of the influenza working group of the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) confirms that the number of acute respiratory infections, to which RSV is counted, is unusually high: "The values are currently even higher than the level of previous years at the peak of severe flu waves," says it in it.
The values estimated using citizen information refer to the previous week.
The values have therefore increased compared to the week before.
According to the report, a total of around 9.5 million acute respiratory diseases in the population in the week under review are assumed - regardless of a doctor's appointment.
The number of doctor visits for respiratory diseases was around two million a week and thus "above the values of previous years at this time and in a range that was otherwise only reached in peak weeks of strong flu waves," writes the RKI.
mostly flu
The events were largely determined by flu infections.
The number of flu cases confirmed in the laboratory in accordance with the Infection Protection Act and reported to the RKI for the past week was around 27,200, which is also a sharp increase compared to the previous week.
According to the report, nearly 160 flu outbreaks with at least five cases have been reported since the beginning of October, around 60 of them in schools.
The number of recorded influenza deaths was reported as 30.
The reported numbers are only a small part of the actual situation.
The proportion of Covid 19 diseases meanwhile “further stabilized” last week.
The flu wave in Germany started unusually early: according to the RKI definition, in the week up to October 30th.
In the two previous winters, there were largely no waves due to the pandemic and the measures taken to counteract it.
Before the pandemic, the flu epidemic usually only started around the turn of the year.
wbr/dpa
