Corona: Situation will worsen in autumn and winter – RI and ECDC warn

Spread the love

Read Time:1 Minute, 38 Second

Stagnant vaccination coverage and increased indoor contacts will lead to more Covid 19 cases in the cold season.

The prognosis is grim. Germany’s Robert Koch Institute expects Corona infection numbers to rise in the fall and winter. Reasons cited include, in particular, a “still large number” of unvaccinated people and an increase in indoor contacts.

The EU health authority ECDC also warns of a worsened Corona situation in Europe this fall in view of partly insufficient vaccination rates between Portugal and Bulgaria.

Slight increase expected for Austria
This is exactly how domestic experts assess the development in the near future. The Covid forecasting consortium expects a slight increase in the number of infections and a moderate increase in the number of Covid patients requiring hospital treatment by mid-October. In terms of utilization in intensive care units, experts expect 259 Covid patients by October 13, and in a worst-case scenario, it could be more than 300. In normal wards, at least close to 700 Covid 19 sufferers are expected.

Seasonal effect
Connections between the spread of the virus and the seasons have not yet been adequately researched. In May of this year, Klaus Prettner of the Institute of Macroeconomics at WU explained, based on his studies, that “the closer a country is to the equator, the fewer confirmed cases of Covid 19 virus per million inhabitants occur. The closer to the equator, the higher the humidity, temperatures and intensity of UV radiation tend to be.” This would suggest a seasonal effect and thus an easing of the Corona situation in the summer; correspondingly, a resurgence of the pandemic once temperatures dropped again in the fall and winter.

Vaccination
The key issue, of course, is vaccination coverage. According to the Austrian Ministry of Health, 5,728,613 people have currently received at least one Corona vaccination, 5,410,849 of whom are fully protected – this corresponds to 60.57 percent of the total population.