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Thanks for the insight. I'm curious; is the problem staffing, "beds" (which I assume means actual physical beds, or is this a term of art?), or a combination?

• fileeditview 5y ago
  It's staffing. See my other comment. Germany lost > 4000 ICU beds during the past year.
  • arrrg 5y ago
    Could you source that claim? I’m comparing the numbers from the DIVI registry: 2020-12-02: https://edoc.rki.de/handle/176904/7522 https://edoc.rki.de/handle/176904/7522 2021-12-02: https://edoc.rki.de/handle/176904/9047 https://edoc.rki.de/handle/176904/9047 I’m getting 24,949 beds for today, 27,543 as the year ago number (in both cases including a couple thousand ICU beds for kids which were later split out in the more current DIVI reports since ICU beds for kids aren’t helpful for this pandemic). That’s a difference of 2,594. Also, as the DIVI themselves explain: “Consequently, several factors play a role in influencing the number of beds that can be operated. A deliberate reduction of beds during the pandemic cannot be assumed. The reduction in available beds can be explained by the various points mentioned above, among others, and is supported by other data collected. The decisive factor for the operability of a bed is the medical staff.” This is under a FAQ entry where they list five different reasons for the reduction in capacity: https://www.intensivregister.de/#/faq/18af7107-e098-43e7-a9f6-723b167559ba https://www.intensivregister.de/#/faq/18af7107-e098-43e7-a9f... Staff themselves being affected by COVID-19 and becoming unable to work is just one of them. The others are changes in how much staff is allocated per patient (this was increased), hospitals being more precise in their reporting and only reporting beds that can actually be staffed, changes in the criteria for a bed to be actually countable and the high effort ICU therapy of COVID-19 patients requires.
    • fileeditview 5y ago
      So I had this number from the (reputable) news but I googled it and found e.g. the Ärzteblatt as a source: https://www.aerzteblatt.de/nachrichten/128476/Intensivmediziner-4-000-Intensivbetten-weniger-seit-Jahresbeginn https://www.aerzteblatt.de/nachrichten/128476/Intensivmedizi... (German) TBH I would not be surprised if the actually don't know the exact numbers. But even if it's "only" 2594 it's still too many. You could call it deliberate however if the working conditions for people under such heavy load are not improved.
• crooked-v 5y ago
  "Beds" means "staffed beds", not just physical places to put patients. It's a combination of facilities and staffing.
  • _moof 5y ago
    Thanks for the clarification. (I'm a little surprised I haven't seen this spelled out before, considering how much ink has been spilled over this issue, but I digress.)
• Tomte 5y ago
  Staffing, mostly. There are a lot of "beds" still available, just nobody to tend to them. But another thing that always gets scrambled in the newspapers is the "level" of ICU beds. The ICU at my town's hospital (and it's not small) has patients that would lie in a normal station at a big university hospital. ICU bed != ICU bed. In smaller hospitals, ICU means "post-op, needs surveillance" or "gets oxygen". At a large hospital ICU means "ECMO" or similarly severe conditions. So when you're reading that there are x thousand ICU beds still available in the country: most are not really up to the task when it comes to a severe covid case, and furthermore, an ICU bed at the other end of the country doesn't help you much.