In the recent corona wave caused by Omikron, infections in hospital patients are often only discovered by chance. People come because of other complaints and when they are admitted, a SARS-CoV-2 infection is found as a secondary diagnosis, as doctors reported in the Ö1 morning journal on Tuesday. According to Ö1, western Austrian hospitals are particularly affected due to hospital admissions after ski injuries.
Patients without symptoms not in the Covid ward
For example, the spokesman for the Tirol Kliniken, Johannes Schwamberger, reported that around a quarter to a third of their patients do not actually come to the hospital because of a corona infection, but that an infection is then diagnosed there. “It’s increasing,” said the doctor. Most cases occur in orthopaedics, traumatology or during treatment after ski injuries. Because many remain asymptomatic, these patients can also be isolated in their rooms and do not need to be transferred to Covid wards.
Two patients with “proper symptoms”
In the three Salzkammergut clinics in Bad Ischl, Gmunden and Vöcklabruck in Upper Austria, this proportion is 30 percent, reported Tilman Königswieser, head of the Salzkammergut Clinic and member of the Upper Austrian state crisis management team, in Ö1. Due to Omicron and the higher seven-day incidences, it is “much more likely” to receive a SARS-CoV-2 infection as a secondary diagnosis, he said. At the beginning of the omicron wave, there were 17 infections in the three houses, five of which were found as a secondary diagnosis on admission. In the meantime, two of them have now “developed proper Covid symptoms,” said Königswieser.
Some patients remain asymptomatic, but for some the corona infection has moved from being a secondary diagnosis to becoming a main diagnosis. In addition, according to the doctors, main diagnoses such as heart attack, thrombosis and pneumonia have often subsequently turned out to be the result of a corona infection.
In Vienna, omicron does not yet play a major role as a secondary diagnosis, says Arshang Valipour, a lung specialist at the Floridsdorf Clinic in the Ö1-Morgenjournal. “We have about ten to 15 percent of so-called secondary diagnoses distributed across the hospitals.” Only if the symptoms of Covid-19 are in the foreground are the patients transferred to a Covid ward.
Source: Nachrichten
