1 / 2 of Germany Covid-19 patients given ventilation died
One in five sufferers hospitalized in Germany above the coronavirus succumbed to the condition, with the fatality amount rising to 53 per cent for those who received ventilation, a report showed on Wednesday.
Data of 10,000 patients admitted to 930 German hospitals between Feb 26 and April 19 were analysed by the German Interdisciplinary Association of Critical Attention and Emergency Treatments, the Technical University of Berlin and AOK medical health insurance group's exploration arm WIdO.
Hospitalized male affected individuals had a higher mortality rate than women, with 25 % compared to 19 %.
Older people were also considerably more vulnerable, as 27 % of patients in their 70s died even while 38 per cent of those above 80-years-old failed to pull through.
"These high mortality rates clearly show a relatively lot of patients with a very serious span of disease were treated found in hospitals," stated Juergen Klauber, director of WIdO.
"Such serious span of diseases mainly affect older persons and persons whose health has already been compromised, but also occur in younger clients," he warned, urging the population to take important precautions to avoid new infections.
Of the 10,021 patients, 1,727 received mechanical ventilation. While nearly twice as many who received ventilation had been men, the mortality prices were similar gender-wise, the analysis said.
Patients were staying in hospitals for typically 2 weeks, with those not on ventilation hospitalized for typically 12 days as the duration for individuals who needed help breathing rose to 25 days.
Reinhard Busse, professor of healthcare management at TU Berlin, noted that typically, 240 days of ventilation would be required for every 100 hospitalized patients.
"These are important numbers to get ready for another wave of the pandemic. However, we do not anticipate any issues with usual hospital beds, even with high infection costs," he added.
Because of its decentralized healthcare system, Germany has been able to significantly crank up its capacity to take care of Covid-19 sufferers, avoiding scenes like found in Italy where most hospitals were overwhelmed by the sudden huge caseload.
However, health experts include urged against complacency, with the top of the RKI disease control organization, Lothar Wieler, repeatedly urging the populace to keep to hygiene guidelines like social distancing or mask wearing.
With the summer holiday season in full swing, politicians are also watching anxiously at infection numbers which have ticked up in the latest weeks.
By Wednesday, Germany has recorded 206,926 cases of infections including 9,128 deaths. - AFP
