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Friday, December 4, 2020
New high
More than 4,000 corona patients in intensive care
More and more corona patients have to be treated in German intensive care units. Now, the German Interdisciplinary Association for Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine reports more than 4,000 patients for the first time. More than half have to be ventilated. Free intensive care beds continue to decline.
The number of corona patients in German intensive care units has passed the threshold of 4,000 for the first time. The German Interdisciplinary Association for Intensive and Emergency Medicine (Divi) reported that 4,011 people were in intensive care. That was 31 more than the day before, as the daily Divi report shows.
60 percent of patients receive invasive ventilation (as of December 4 at 12:15 pm). The declared number of free intensive care beds has decreased significantly in recent weeks. According to the Divi report, there are currently around 5,000 with no emergency reserve, which means that more than 80 percent of the beds are occupied. In some regions there are even less than ten percent free beds. Some even no longer have capacity, including the Oberspreewald-Lausitz district in Brandenburg or the Landshut district in Bavaria. According to Divi, the reason the number of free intensive care beds is now decreasing so significantly could also be related to the fact that some clinics initially incorrectly declared the number of their free beds.
Instead of “ready-to-use beds”, for which nurses are also available, some have submitted the actual number of beds to the Divi-Register. That has now been corrected, so the number of beds on the record fell in October and November. Another reason, according to Divi, may be that nurses are absent due to illness and therefore hospitals can accept fewer patients.
According to the Robert Koch Institute, the number of reported deaths recently reached 432 on Friday, the third highest value since the start of the pandemic. The number of new infections in 24 hours was 23,449 on Friday. The value is just above 22,806 cases from the previous week.
