Flu, RSV and Covid – the doctor’s offices are full of patients. At the same time, bacteria that burden the respiratory tract also spread. In order to curb the further spread of the pathogen, the Robert Koch Institute advises people with symptoms to stay at home.
The nationwide corona incidence was declining until the end of November, then the development reversed – rising values have been registered since the beginning of December. Most recently, the corona incidence increased by eleven percent compared to the previous week, as can be seen from the Covid 19 weekly report by the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) on Thursday evening. It refers to numbers for the week ended December 18th. The RKI experts had already reported an increase of eight and seven percent in the two previous reports.
Corona infections are currently not the biggest problem when it comes to acute respiratory infections: most such infections that led to a doctor’s visit were recently caused by influenza viruses (55 percent) and human respiratory syncytial viruses (RSV, 15 percent). triggered. Experts only found the corona virus in 5 percent of the samples examined, writes the RKI.
Overall, the institute estimated the number of Sars-CoV-2 infected people with symptoms for the past week at 400,000 to 700,000 – a similar number to the week before. Around nine million people were suffering from an acute respiratory infection. The number of Covid diseases is currently increasing in the group of older adults, while children and younger adults are mainly affected by influenza and RSV infections.
Due to the high burden on practices in the current wave of infections, family doctors had recently asked for more money. The services provided to care for patients with influenza, corona or the RS virus would have to be paid for additionally, the German Association of General Practitioners explained on Thursday. “We urgently need immediate measures to relieve and strengthen general practitioner care, comparable to those taken by politicians during the corona pandemic,” said Federal Chairman Markus Beier.
In its current report, the RKI refers to an increase in bacterial infections of the respiratory tract, which accompanied the very strong circulation of respiratory viruses. “The number of group A streptococcal infections and pneumococcal infections is expected to continue to increase,” says the weekly report. “This represents an additional challenge for the healthcare system.”
In view of this, the RKI emphasizes how important it is to comply with the existing recommendations for avoiding infections and transmissions. Anyone who has symptoms such as a cough, runny nose or sore throat should stay at home for three to five days and until the symptoms improve significantly, avoid contacts and contact their family doctor if necessary.
The majority of all coronavirus infections in Germany are still caused by the Omicron line BA.5. Meanwhile, the proportion of the omicron subline BQ.1.1 continued to increase. According to the RKI, their share is now over 21 percent (previous week: 17 percent).
The number of hospital treatments due to a severe respiratory infection and a Covid 19 diagnosis has recently remained stable as in the past few weeks. The number of Covid patients who had to be treated in an intensive care unit increased in the past week compared to the previous week, writes the RKI, citing figures from intensive care physicians.
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