According to virologists: Vienna is already in the middle of a second wave

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According to virologist Christoph Wenisch, the Austrian capital is already in its second corona wave.

The number of new infections in Vienna continues to rise. In the last 24 hours there have been 178 new cases in the capital city. As of Wednesday, 7,374 positive tests have been confirmed in Vienna so far, 5,557 people have recovered.

And also the number of active corona patients is growing daily. Meanwhile there are 3,155 active cases in all of Austria. However, there is still (officially) no talk of a second wave. At least, neither a politician nor a virologist or physician has explicitly spoken about it. Until now!

Christoph Wenisch, the head of the Infection Department at the Kaiser Franz Josef Hospital, was a guest in the “Wien heute” studio on Wednesday and talked to presenter Ulrike Dobeš about the coronavirus. And at the same time the Viennese virologist assured that the second wave has already been there “since July”.

When asked what such a wave would mean for the virologist, Wenisch explained: “We in the hospital have been treating patients in the department the whole time. So far we have had over 700 inpatient cases and 100 in intensive care. There has not been a single day where less than 50 patients have been in therapy for a severe Covid infection,” Wenisch said.

And according to the virologist, this proportion has increased recently. Wenisch: “This increased for the first time at the end of July when travel began. It used to be 50 or 60, now on weekends we had 70 patients”. The virologist also openly admits that a second hospital had to help out. “We couldn’t do that alone anymore”.

The virologist is “quite happy” with the “Teststraße” in Vienna, where people can test themselves voluntarily. This way, the coronavirus can be detected early on without the people still having symptoms and the chains of infection cannot develop. In this way, further infections could be intercepted. “This should help us to get it right,” says Wenisch.