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The fourth Corona infection wave has started significantly earlier than the third wave last summer. According to AGES figures, the seven-day incidence three weeks before the start of school last year was only ten infections per 100,000 inhabitants; this year it is already 51.
The number of severe courses is also significantly higher: on Wednesday, 51 patients with a Corona infection were in intensive care, a year earlier there were only half as many (25).
A similarly high seven-day incidence to the current one occurred last year only on September 15 – more than a week after the start of school in western Austria. At that time, too, the virus was much more rampant among younger people than among the older population. The most severely affected group, with an incidence of just under 122, was 15- to 24-year-olds.
This year, too, this age group has recorded the highest number of infections (with an incidence of 143 per 100,000 inhabitants). However, the incidence among the older age groups is significantly lower this year than in mid-September of the previous year, when the total number of infections across all age groups was at about the current level, due to the more widespread vaccination there.
It remains to be seen how quickly and how far infections and severe courses will now rise. In any case, the Covid forecasting consortium’s expected number of 740 new infections per day for next week has already been significantly exceeded this week.
According to that forecast, the number of ICU patients is expected to rise to between 56 and 97 by Aug. 25. The epidemiologist Gerald Gartlehner has already pointed out on Thursday that the fourth wave of infection will mainly affect the unvaccinated.
- source: kurier.at/picture: pixabay.com
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