80 per day on average – hospital admissions are falling – reason for relief?

The official Covid numbers are currently pointing to relaxation. After the measures ordered by the Federal Council on Friday came too late for many and scientists feared an inevitable overload of the hospitals, the situation is now different.

The data from the Federal Office of Public Health (BAG) show that the daily hospitalizations and the seven-day average has steadily decreased in the past two weeks. The average on December 8th was just under 112 hospitalizations with Covid-19, six days later it was still just under 81 hospitalizations.

At the same time, the daily laboratory-confirmed infection numbers also fell. On St. Niklaus Day, the BAG reported a new record of infections with 12,772 cases. Since then, the seven-day average has slowly declined. Last Friday, for example, the BAG recorded almost 8,689 new cases.

This development is also indicated by the reproduction number, which indicates how many other people an infected person will infect on average. The value has been falling slowly since the end of November and has now leveled off a little below one. For comparison: when fewer than 100 cases per day were recorded at the beginning of June 2021, the number of reproductions was a good 0.62.

Compared to two weeks ago, the situation in the hospitals has at least stabilized or eased somewhat. At that time, several hospitals warned of an impending overload. For example, the university hospital had to block several intensive care beds due to a lack of staff.

How is this development to be classified? Martin Bäumle, GLP National Councilor and atmospheric scientist, thinks it is too early to dare to make a clear prognosis about the epidemiological development. He is closely monitoring the situation and awaiting the first signals to Omikron around Christmas.

However, he suspects that the number of cases due to Omikron could rise significantly in December if the previous assumptions about Omikron’s strong “immune escape” prove to be true. “If Omikron is not much more contagious, but less aggressive than the Delta variant, we could get through the winter without overloading the intensive care beds or widespread closures.” Nevertheless, the hospital charges would remain high for longer, says Bäumle.

But Bäumle is more concerned about the entry regulations for return travelers and ski tourists, which have been relaxed since December 20th, 21st. Bäumle does not understand that they are allowed to enter Switzerland without a booster, double test or quarantine – other countries are constantly tightening and Switzerland is attracting tourists like in 2020. “That is simply irresponsible!” He fears that tourists in particular could bring more viral loads to Switzerland in this way. “The Federal Council is severely restricting the Swiss population and at the same time massively relaxing the entry requirements.”

Patrick Mathys, Head of the Crisis Management and International Cooperation Section at the FOPH, does not want to give the all-clear. “The burdens are still very high in the hospitals.”

There has been only a slight decrease in hospitalizations in the past few days, says Mathys. “Due to the long time patients spend in the intensive care unit, an increase in hospital admissions can be expected over the next few days.” At the latest when high case numbers are recorded because of Omikron, hospitalizations will rise again.