The situation is very, very worrying: Intensive care medicine chief Gernot Marx doubts the effectiveness of the new resolutions to combat corona. But he doesn’t see any reason to panic.
Berlin – The President of the German Interdisciplinary Association for Intensive and Emergency Medicine (Divi), Gernot Marx, doubts that the new resolutions to combat corona are sufficient.
He is very worried about the unchecked infection rate and an exponentially increasing load on the intensive care units, so Marx on Deutschlandfunk. “I’m not sure whether the measures that have been decided are really sufficient for us to successfully fight the pandemic here,” said Marx.
The situation is very worrying
There is no need to panic, but the situation is very, very worrying, Marx assessed the situation in intensive care units in general. In some regions the situation is extremely tense and at the limit. In many areas, the normal, plannable surgical program is still feasible, but in many places in regions such as Berlin, Bavaria, Saxony and Thuringia, it is no longer possible. Clinics increasingly switched to emergency mode. “This is linked to the fact that the very high level of general health care in our country is not available in the usual way,” said Marx.
According to Marx, the vast majority of Covid intensive care patients are not vaccinated. There is a clear connection between a low vaccination rate and high case numbers of Covid patients. On average, 0.8 to 1 percent of newly infected people ended up in an intensive care unit within ten to twelve days.
Marx welcomes the three-step process
Marx welcomed the three-step procedure agreed by the federal and state governments for corona restrictions depending on the rate of hospital admissions for Covid sufferers. We have to wait and see whether that is sufficient. But Marx criticized the end of the epidemic situation of national importance. There is such a situation. “We would also only take a drug with a very high effect and very high side effects in an emergency. But when it comes down to it, we’re glad that we have them in the closet, ”Marx made clear.
The immunologist Michael Meyer-Hermann described the expiry of the emergency situation as an “absurd decision”. In the ARD “Tagesthemen”, the expert from the Braunschweig Helmholtz Center for Infection Research also said that it was known from other countries that the 2G rule, i.e. access only for vaccinated and convalescent people, was not enough to curb the current increase. Even a massive vaccination campaign would not help “to break this fourth wave immediately”. Effects are only visible in January or February. Nevertheless, vaccination remains the only chance to solve the corona problem. Either a person gets the virus or they get vaccinated. The second option is the better choice. dpa
