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“We are right on the border”
One was “seriously worried in the meantime,” he said Markstaller and named approximate framework conditions. Intensive care medicine is designed so that 85 to 90 percent of intensive care beds are always occupied, regardless of the pandemic. Another model is too expensive. “So, in principle, they are very busy.” If you need more beds, “then this is perfectly covered in this healthcare system,” says Markstaller. Fluctuations of ten percent, that is, 200 more beds, can be available without causing problems. But: The pandemic is an exceptional situation.
“When more than a third of all available intensive care beds are no longer available,” triage begins, Markstaller said. 550 of the 2,000 intensive care beds are currently occupied. In this area you have to think about “how to divide this resource”. If this will increase in the next few days, which is likely based on current figures, qualification will be unavoidable. You can’t just increase capabilities. “Intensive care medicine is complex,” Markstaller said. Intensive care physicians, whether they are doctors or nurses, need years of training and experience. “This means that this resource is limited per se.” Hence his “really serious” call: “Please live the measures.”
The triage process is “progressive”. “It is becoming increasingly difficult to get patients to the intensive care beds that need them,” said Markstaller. “We are exactly on the edge. We will have to start over the next few days to decide to what extent we can treat which patients with intensive care medicine.” As soon as “difficult triage” occurs, prognostic factors, the patient’s will, environmental conditions, and comparison with other patients will determine who is treated and who is not. It must be an “ethical decision”.
Rabady: Atypical Covid Symptoms
“There is nothing else to overlook,” said Susanne Rabady, Society for General Medicine. The health system “is now fully used,” he clarified. “The numbers have to go down now.”
“One of our biggest concerns is that people who experience symptoms of the disease do not communicate with their doctors.” In the vast majority of cases, the symptoms of Covid are not the ones that are always reported, such as a dry cough or fever. The initial symptoms are pain in the limbs, sore throat, feeling cold, and headache. Rabady’s appeal: get a taste of early symptoms. “Don’t let me know until the story ends,” Rabady said. You must contact your family doctor by phone beforehand. His “good news”: “The pandemic will pass.”
Soon 700 Covid intensive care patients
Ostermann spoke about the “hard numbers” from a bird’s eye view. The figures that had been forecast for the hospitals on October 29 for November 12 had been achieved quite accurately. On Friday, 567 people were in intensive care units. By the middle of next week, 700 people with corona are expected to be in intensive care units and 4,000 in normal beds. If “new infections are effectively decreasing,” slight relief is possible. “In general, we are faced with a very, very critical situation where you need to make change quickly and collectively,” Ostermann said.
The federal states have developed step-by-step plans over the summer for how corona patients should be treated. The plans would also establish how the reserve potential can be used. “We are talking about emergency solutions and by no means normal operation,” Ostermann said.
