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COVID-19

German air force transfers patients as clinics fill up

Germany on Friday used a military plane to transfer intensive care patients to less afflicted regions, an unprecedented move as a vicious fourth wave of the pandemic fills hospital wards.

Published: 27 November 2021 06:40 CET
Medics wearing PPE are seen transporting a patient infected with Covid-19 to an ambulance from an armed forces medical transport plane
Medics wearing PPE transport a patient infected with Covid-19 to an ambulance from an armed forces medical transport plane for transfer to less busy intensive care units in the country amid a ferocious fourth wave of the virus. Ina Fassbender / AFP

A specially equipped Airbus 310 medical transport plane took off from Memmingen in the hard-hit state of Bavaria headed for Muenster/Osnabrueck airport in the west of the country, a German air force spokesman said.

Using an emergency plan devised earlier in the pandemic, patients in overstretched intensive care units are being moved to clinics that still have capacity for critically ill people.

A ferocious fourth wave of Covid-19 has in particular ravaged the south and south-east of the EU’s most populous country.

“The situation is dramatically serious — more serious than at any other point in this pandemic,” Health Minister Jens Spahn told reporters on Friday, as he called on regional and local authorities under Germany’s federalist system to tighten shutdown measures.

The transport plane has six intensive care beds, which a defence ministry spokesman said would all be filled on the first flight, with further planes on standby.

Germany this week passed the grim milestone of 100,000 deaths from coronavirus since the beginning of the outbreak, as daily infections continue to shatter records.

The Robert Koch Institute infectious disease centre on Friday reported 76,414 cases in 24 hours while the seven-day incidence per 100,000 people reached 438.2 — both setting new highs.

The below chart from Our World in Data shows the difference between the current situation and previous waves.

As the situation worsens, Spahn and other officials are calling for the next crisis meeting between federal and state leaders set for December 9th to be moved forward to approve new measures.

Outgoing chancellor Angela Merkel, who is expected to hand over the reins to a new government early next month, warned on Thursday that “every day counts” as she urged “more contact restrictions” to fight the virus.

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COVID-19

Is the pandemic over in Germany?

As much of Germany lifts - or prepares to lift - the last remaining Covid-19 measures, intensive care units say Covid-19 admissions are no longer straining the system.

Published: 24 January 2023 09:00 CET
Is the pandemic over in Germany?

Despite a difficult winter of respiratory illnesses, intensive care units in Germany say Covid-19 admissions have almost halved. The number of cases having to be treated in the ICU has gone down to 800 from 1,500 at the beginning of this month.

“Corona is no longer a problem in intensive care units,” Gernot Marx, Vice President of the German Interdisciplinary Association for Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine, told the German Editorial Network. “A the moment, we don’t have to think every day about how to still ensure the care of patients, but how to actually run a service that can help.”

Marx said the drop has allowed them to catch up on many postponed surgeries.

The number of sick employees in hospitals is also falling, helping to relieve the pressure on personnel.

The easing pressure on hospitals correlates with the assessment of prominent virologist and head of the Virology department at Berlin’s Charite – Christian Drosten – who said in December that the pandemic was close to ending, with the winter wave being an endemic one.

German federal and state governments are now in the midst of lifting the last of the country’s pandemic-related restrictions. Free Covid-19 antigen tests for most people, with exceptions for medical personnel, recently ended.

READ ALSO: Free Covid-19 tests end in Germany

Six federal states – Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg, Hessen, Thuringia, Lower Saxony, and Schleswig-Holstein – have ended mandatory isolation periods for people who test positive for Covid-19.

Bavaria, Saxony-Anhalt, and Schleswig-Holstein have ended the requirement to wear FFP2 masks on public transport, while Berlin, Brandenburg, Saxony, Thuringia, and Mecklenburg-West Pomerania will follow suit on February 2nd.

At that time, the federal government will also drop its requirement for masks to be worn on long-distance trains. Labour Minister Hubertus Heil says that’s when he also intends to exempt workplaces – apart from medical locations – from a mask requirement.

READ ALSO: Germany to drop mask mandate in trains and buses from February 2nd

Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg will also end the requirement for patients to wear a mask in doctor’s offices. That’s a requirement that, so far, will stay in place everywhere else. Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach has also said that he thinks this requirement should remain. 

But some public health insurers and general practitioners are calling for a nationwide end to the obligation for wearing masks in doctor’s offices.

“The pandemic situation is over,” National Association of Statutory Health Physicians (KBV) Chair Andreas Gassen told the RND network. “High-risk patients aren’t treated in all practices. It should generally be left up to medical colleagues to decide whether they want to require masks in their practices.”

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