Corona is back – and apparently with force. The number of Covid patients in English hospitals is higher than it has been since April.
The last time English hospitals saw such a high proportion of patients requiring treatment for Covid-19 was as in April this year. This is reported by “The Independent”. The number of hospital admissions of patients who tested positive for Covid-19 was 4.6 per 100,000 people in the week ending September 10th, compared to 3.7 per 100,000 in the previous week. This is the highest value since the week ending April 30th, according to the Independent, citing the British Health Security Agency (UKHSA).
However, the numbers are still very low. Accordingly, the value in Great Britain at Christmas 2022 was an incidence of 11.8 per 100,000 inhabitants. And of course the value is also well below the peak values in the first year of the pandemic.
Older people are particularly affected
However, the rate has been in a clear upward trend for two months. And again it affects older people: the rates are still highest for people aged 85 and over at 51.1 per 100,000 and for 75 to 84 year olds at 21.2.
The number of people who were admitted to English hospitals for other illnesses and tested positive for Corona also apparently continued to rise. On September 10th – according to the “Independent” – it was 3,356. This means an increase of 15 percent compared to the previous week (2,915). This is the highest value since May 19th.
Is the “Pirola” variant behind it?
The “Pirola” variant, which first appeared in Denmark in July, is worrying experts around the world. The reason: With its over 30 mutations in the spike protein, it apparently undermines the immune protection built up through vaccination and/or infection better than others. .
However, the British health authority cannot attribute the recent increase in the number of infections and severe cases to BA.2.86 (the medical name). Insufficient data would have been collected worldwide to allow a reliable assessment of the possible spread of BA.2.86. There have been 42 confirmed cases of the new variant in Great Britain so far.
What is the situation in Germany?
In Germany , too , the Robert Koch Institute has been recording rising corona numbers again for weeks. Most recently, the RKI reported around 6,780 Covid cases, which is more than three times the numbers in the first week of August. Experts estimate the number of unreported cases to be 90 percent. “Pirola” was detected for the first time in Germany last week. At the same time, the situation in the health system is (still) relaxed. A week ago, intensive care physician Stefan Kluge from the University Hospital Hamburg-Eppendorf reported 182 patients with Covid-19 in his clinic, but in only half of them the virus was the reason for their hospital stay. They represented around one percent of the treatments in the intensive care units. “We are observing an infection process, but it is going relatively calmly,” he said.