German hospitals packed to the brim with 40% more Covid-19 patients in ICUs than during 1st wave – union chief

“In states like Saxony, the number of patients in intensive care is five times higher than it was in April. Hospitals are either reaching their capacity limits or have already exceeded them,” Gerald Gass, the head of the German Hospital Federation (DKG), an umbrella group uniting regional hospital associations, told the newspaper Welt am Sonntag.

According to DKG, there are currently 40 percent more Covid-19 patients in ICUs than during the first wave of the pandemic in spring. Furthermore, around 16,000 patients are being treated for the coronavirus in normal wards.

When the first wave hit Germany, smaller hospitals were able to send their seriously-ill patients to better-equipped university clinics, but this now proves challenging as the clinics are oftentimes packed to the brim, the paper said.

The grim picture falls in line with earlier reports by German media that hospitals were struggling with the renewed influx of Covid-19 patients as the cases were rising across the country.