In the third pandemic winter, Germany is experiencing an unprecedented wave of illnesses. RKI data show: The number of respiratory infections is already well above the usual seasonal levels at the beginning of the cold season. But Corona plays a supporting role.
Full family doctor’s surgeries, half-empty offices, catastrophic conditions in the hospitals: the current wave of illness is having an impact nationwide. It’s no longer just about canceled lessons in schools, closed daycare centers or days off at work. Staff shortages also jeopardize operations in system-critical areas. Doctors have been warning of dramatic overloads in the German health system for weeks.
In the case of acute respiratory diseases – i.e. diseases with symptoms such as cough, sore throat and/or fever – the number of cases recorded continued to rise in mid-December, as data from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) shows. The disease rate, which was extrapolated on the basis of information from the population, already exceeded the 10 percent mark at the end of November.
By mid-December, the so-called ARE rate had climbed to 11.0 percent. According to estimates by the RKI experts, around 9.3 million people in Germany were acutely affected: more than one in ten people was already ill at the beginning of the current cold season. The RKI speaks of a “significantly increasing trend”. Because the usual late reports from the last few weeks are still pending, the true rate could be higher.
The RKI emphasizes that the indicator is already “well above the previous year’s values” and also far exceeds the empirical values ??from pre-pandemic times. “The currently very high value even exceeds the maximum values ??that have otherwise been reached in strong flu waves,” says the health experts in an assessment of the situation.
In technical jargon, the abbreviation ARE stands for “acute respiratory diseases”, i.e. infections of the respiratory tract, regardless of the type of pathogen. Behind the large number of infections are influenza cases as well as infections with RS viruses or the usually much more harmless rhinoviruses. The wave of infections that swelled in the third pandemic winter is only being driven to a small extent by coronavirus infections.
According to the available data, the mass of infections can be traced back to an exceptionally strong and unusually early onset of flu and the RS viruses circulating in the population. It is striking that the number of influenza cases rose much earlier and more steeply this year than in previous years. The situation is similar with the RSV wave, which can trigger life-threatening diseases, especially for small children.
The proportion of Covid diseases, on the other hand, has so far been far below the level of the two previous years: With an ARE rate of 11.0 percent, Germany currently has a total of around 11,000 cases of infection per 100,000 inhabitants – influenza, corona, RSV, rhinoviruses and other pathogens locked in. The RKI, on the other hand, gives the weekly Covid rate calculated on a comparable basis for the beginning of December at “about 0.2 percent”, which corresponds to about 200 cases per 100,000 inhabitants. For comparison: In the previous year, the Covid rate in the comparison week (week 48) was 0.5 percent.
Using laboratory data, the RKI can estimate which pathogens are currently driving the infection process. However, this so-called “virological surveillance” only provides a very rough picture of the situation: In the most recent sample, among the almost 300 cases analyzed, more than half of the analyzed samples (55 percent) contained real influenza viruses and around 18 percent the respiratory ones Syncytial viruses, i.e. RSV. Rhinoviruses, which usually cause harmless cold symptoms, could only be detected in seven percent of the samples. Corona viruses of the type Sars-CoV-2 currently only account for a share of three percent.
How the health situation in Germany will develop over the course of the winter is still completely open. Influenza waves usually only reach their peak towards the end of the cold season in February. And with a view to the coronavirus pandemic, the danger is far from over. Recently, the number of cases has also increased noticeably here.
The RKI has therefore been calling for weeks to comply with the known recommendations for health protection and to take advantage of the vaccinations against Covid-19 and influenza. The force of the wave of illnesses depends above all on the “behaviour of the population and mutual consideration”.
Anyone who feels ill should therefore stay at home for three to five days and “until a significant improvement in the symptoms” when symptoms such as a runny nose, sore throat or cough appear, contact the family doctor’s practice if necessary and make all avoidable contacts limit – “regardless of the vaccination status and also in the case of a negative Covid rapid test result”, as the RKI expressly states.
