In the Rhineland, the number of infections skyrockets after the carnival. According to family doctors, sick leave has doubled in the past few days. So far, there is no relief in sight.
For the first time in three years, millions of revelers can celebrate carnival again – without any corona restrictions. However, this is now making itself felt in general practitioners’ practices: shortly after Ash Wednesday, the waiting rooms in the Rhineland are full of patients suffering from respiratory diseases. “The wave of illness is here,” says a spokeswoman for the North Rhine General Practitioners’ Association of the German Press Agency. “As expected, sick leave has exploded, sick leave has doubled in the last few days.”
According to family doctors, most patients complain of cold symptoms. These are both classic colds and flu or corona. “There is a colorful spectrum of diseases, mainly among younger people,” says association head Oliver Funken of the “Rheinische Post”. The older patients are less active during the carnival and also protect themselves more often with a mask.
The fact that adolescents and young adults in particular were absent was already apparent before Shrove Monday: “In the previous week in NRW, the infection rates due to respiratory diseases were tending to decrease among children and over 60-year-olds, in the age group of 15 to 34-year-olds and of the 35 to 59-year-olds, however, they have already increased,” explains the Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians (KV) in North Rhine-Westphalia, referring to the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) in the newspaper. General practitioners expect that the number of cases of illness will continue to increase – especially among younger people. The reason is that after the long carnival weekend, the germs are now also being spread in schools.
The wave of illness is also fueled by Corona. The University Hospital Düsseldorf has been reporting an increasing number of Covid patients for several days. Until the beginning of February there were usually fewer than 20, but there are now 51 corona sufferers, five of whom are in the intensive care unit. The North Rhine-Westphalia Association of Pharmacists also confirms the trend. “Well over ten percent of the corona tests in the Rhineland are now positive. Nationwide, the average in pharmacies is only 7.5 percent,” says association leader Thomas Preis of the “Rheinische Post”. The number of people who have tested positive has been rising steeply since January.
Price expects the number of corona infections to continue to rise. “Anyone who has a cold should wear a mask and those who are corona positive should particularly avoid contact with pregnant women, the chronically ill and older citizens,” he advises. Those who have just recovered from Corona are very susceptible to getting new infections for many days. “You obviously don’t have a well-functioning immune system for some time.”
The KV Westfalen-Lippe also considers an increase in flu cases due to the carnival to be “not unlikely”, since there were many contacts in a small area. Anyone who is not yet ill and has to deal with many people professionally or privately should be vaccinated against flu, advises the KV.
