For a long time, the incidence was the decisive factor in assessing the corona infection rate. As the vaccination rate increased, however, it recently lost some of its informative value. In the future, the hospitalization rate will play a decisive role – but other factors will also be taken into account.
More and more people in Germany are vaccinated and have only a low risk of severe corona courses. The incidence as the sole factor in the pandemic has thus had its day, but will remain as a further corona benchmark. Why is that? And which values are now the focus?
In the future, the so-called Hospitalisierungsrate play the decisive role in the evaluation of the infection process, as the Bundestag decided on Tuesday in the new version of the Infection Protection Act. The value takes into account how busy the hospitals are and is calculated from the number of corona patients admitted per 100,000 inhabitants within seven days. The clinic incidence mainly records severe courses – minor illnesses that do not require a clinic are not included in the statistics. If there is an imminent overload of the clinics, the individual federal states can take countermeasures regionally and, for example, issue new requirements.
The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) has reported the hospitalization rate for a long time. 638 Covid patients were recently admitted to the clinics within 24 hours, as shown by the nationwide hospitalization rate of 1.79 per 100,000 inhabitants.
Countries determine critical threshold values
The nationwide value, however, will not play a major role when it comes to taking new measures. In future, this will be the responsibility of the federal states. You can set the limit values yourself and orientate yourself on the regional hospital capacities. Bavaria, for example, has announced a traffic light system. From a hospitalization rate of 1200 patients within seven days, the traffic light jumps to yellow, which results in stricter corona rules.
The “clinic incidence” as the sole benchmark is not without controversy, as it does not take into account the risk of “long covid”, among other things. In addition, it does not reflect the current infection rate. People who come to a hospital with severe disease have been infected several days beforehand. Critics fear that if only the number of hospital admissions is observed, countermeasures may take effect too late. For this reason, the well-known Seven-day incidence of new infections are further taken into account as a current and additional factor. However, from now on it should not play as important a role as it has in recent months.
The incidence has recently increasingly lost its informative value, which is mainly due to the increasing number of vaccinations: In rare cases, people who have been vaccinated can still be infected with the virus. However, they are usually only mildly ill. The result: Even with higher case numbers, the number of seriously ill Covid 19 patients who are dependent on hospital treatment is lower than with comparable incidences in the past year. In a sense, this allows higher numbers of cases, albeit not unlimited – especially with a view to population groups that have not yet been vaccinated.
The focus is on vaccination quota
An important factor that also matters is accordingly Impfquote. It should also be taken into account as a further guide value in the future. The intensive care medical association Divi recently pointed out the connection between the incidence, vaccination rate and the number of intensive care beds occupied: “Even at incidences of 200 / 100,000, a considerable burden on the intensive care units with more than 3000 Covid-19 patients can be expected again, as long as the vaccination rate is not increased significantly, “it says
There are big differences between the individual federal states. Eastern federal states in particular are at the bottom of the list. In Saxony, for example, according to figures from the Robert Koch Institute, 52.6 percent of the population was fully vaccinated up to and including Monday – in Bremen, however, 71.5 percent. Brandenburg, Thuringia and Saxony-Anhalt are also below the national average of 61.4 percent. These differences are not to be seen lightly: “A few percentage points in the vaccination quota have a significant impact on the potential intensive occupancy in autumn,” the publication continues.
That is why there is still another factor Situation in the intensive care units important. The hospitalization rate does not provide a clear picture here, as it records all Covid 19 hospital admissions, not just those in intensive care. Are currently dependent on intensive medical care – and the trend is rising. The previous high of the pandemic was reached at the beginning of January 2021 with 5,762 cases. Many intensive care units then reported only a “limited” possible operation.
