AKH intensive care physicians: – Every 3rd corona patient has to go to the intensive care unit


According to Federal Chancellor Sebastian Kurz (ÖVP), the occupancy of intensive care beds will be the leading indicator in the pandemic assessment instead of the seven-day incidence. In the hospitals, the focus has been on this area for a long time – after all, the utilization of the intensive care units has been increasing significantly for weeks. Intensive care physician Thomas Staudinger knows the critical situation at Vienna General Hospital. All places are already occupied, says Staudinger, it is “frightening” that currently “at least every third hospitalized patient has to go to the intensive care unit”.

In Vienna’s hospitals, some normal wards are again being converted into monitoring stations for Covid 19 intensive care patients; according to Staudinger, two intensive care wards in the AKH are again completely reserved for Covid patients. The procedure is “necessary”, according to the intensive care physician in an interview with Puls 24 on Monday. One received “many, many inquiries” from Viennese hospitals last weekend, and “today we are in the situation for the first time that we have not received a single one had more free bed in the house ”.

“We weren’t used to that from the previous variants”
Patients will be cared for, reassured the doctor, but as in previous waves, operations will now have to be postponed again. But it is “a bit frightening” that at the moment “at least every third hospitalized patient has to go to the intensive care unit – we were not used to that from the previous variants to the extent”. The intensive care units would “become the bottleneck again,” said Staudinger.

The increase in the past two weeks is particularly worrying – especially in Vienna, where the numbers have almost tripled. “If it continues like this, we will be at the limit relatively quickly,” says Staudinger. “We can only hope that the 60 percent of the fully immunized will give us a certain plateau.”

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“All intensive care patients not vaccinated”
Staudinger confirmed a “pandemic of the unvaccinated” also for the AKH: Although he could not speak for the whole of Vienna, “all intensive care patients are unvaccinated” in the general hospital. In the past two months, they have had two vaccinated patients, but they have been immunosuppressed – the immune system is suppressed by drugs, for example in an organ transplant. In such patients, the vaccination does not work as well.

“Intensive incidence figures lag behind by two to three weeks”
Kurz had presented his “priorities” in dealing with the corona pandemic for autumn in the ORF “Summer Talk” on Monday evening (see above). The key point is that bed occupancy in intensive care units should become the new lead indicator instead of the seven-day incidence. According to Staudinger, this is “difficult”, he pointed out that the intensive care figures lagged behind the incidence figures by two to three weeks.

The willingness to vaccinate is decreasing: So few vaccinations were carried out on Sunday as last in January – when there was still too little vaccine. In Vorarlberg, for example, only one vaccination was given, in Salzburg two.