More and more corona patients in the intensive care unit

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421 Covid-19 patients had to be treated in intensive care units throughout Austria on Friday. For 18 November, 750 people in intensive care units are predicted, said Herwig Ostermann, Managing Director of Gesundheit Österreich GmbH. This pushes the health system to its limits. According to the forecast, a total of around 3,500 patients will be in hospital treatment on November 18. On Friday there were already 2,504 patients. The alarming finding: Austria’s hospitals are on the brink of collapse if the number of newly infected patients remains high.

Vorarlberg: One quarter of intensive care beds occupied
The situation is particularly dramatic in Vorarlberg, where a quarter of intensive care beds are already occupied. A nurse from Bregenz reports: “In the Bregenz State Hospital, the Internal Medicine Ward South is completely closed off. It is run as an isolation area. All beds are occupied by Covid-19 patients”. In Dornbirn an emergency care center with 200 hospital beds is now being built.

Corona out of control: 250 deaths in one week
The coronavirus is spreading rapidly: On Friday there were 6,464 new infections in Austria, confirmed Health Minister Rudolf Anschober (Greens). Contact tracing has largely failed. Where people get infected can hardly be clarified. Only in 27% of the cases of infection is the source clarified, informed Daniela Schmid, spokeswoman of the Corona Commission. Only a week ago, half of the newly infected people knew where they had been infected. However, Anschober hopes that the “lockdown light” will stabilize the numbers again.

A sad peak was also reported: For the first time, 72 people died from the virus in one day. There were more than 250 deaths in the last week.

Average age is now 43 years
Increasingly older are the people infected with the coronavirus. The average age is constantly increasing and is currently already at 43 years. According to the current state of research, fellow citizens over 60 years of age are particularly at risk.

In old and nursing homes there is already a noticeably rising number of cases – and that Austria far, described health minister Anschober. He wants to protect older people in particular.

Stricter corona measures have been in force since Tuesday. How effective these are really, will be to be seen according to Anschober only in ten days. There will be an evaluation next Friday, November 13.