The intensive care physician Jens Meier from Linz expects that the intensive care units in Upper Austria will still be in the exceptional area “well beyond Christmas”, even if the lockdown should quickly lead to a reduction in new infections. Corona patients would only come to the intensive care unit some time after the diagnosis and often stay there for a long time – “two, four, six weeks”. According to this, around 30 percent do not survive.
“The high number of cases means that the system can easily be overloaded and is already overloaded,” said Meier, Head of the Clinic for Anesthesiology and Operative Intensive Care Medicine at the Kepler University Clinic in Linz (KUK), in the context of an online symposium organized by Johannes Kepler University on Tuesday. Since March 2020, more than 2500 patients have been treated for Covid-19 in the KUK, said Lungen Primary Bernd Lamprecht, that 20 to 25 percent of all corona hospital patients in Upper Austria have been vaccinated. Only 20 percent of intensive care patients have been vaccinated. Experience has shown that you can manage a seven-day incidence of around 500 in the intensive care units quite well, with a higher vaccination rate it becomes easier. The seven-day incidence in Upper Austria is currently over 1640, and across Austria around 1100. The fact that the vaccination is working can only be seen from the fact that it has reduced the hospitalization rate from six to nine percent in the previous year to only two percent . In the intensive care units, only around 20 percent of the patients are vaccinated. The vaccinated are mainly patients with immunodeficiency, undergoing chemotherapy or after transplants – especially if the last vaccination was a long time ago. 1600 substances are currently being examined. There are medicines for the early phase that can help reduce the risk of a severe course, but all in all, “preventive medicine is currently significantly more effective than repair medicine”. Senior physician Helmut Salzer stated that 13 candidates had achieved positive study results with recommendations, 39 positive results without recommendations, and many more were in the clinical or preclinical phase. The virus will not go away, according to Lamprecht. Of course there is hope that it will weaken, but presumably a “substantial part of the population” will have to be protected for a long time. In the Delta variant, a vaccination rate of 80 percent is the “minimum requirement”. The mask will probably continue to accompany us, said Lamprecht. It is a good measure for sensitive areas. It was also seen that by wearing a mask and keeping your distance, flu and respiratory infections have decreased. Positive: He does not currently see a variant that would undermine the vaccination.
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