At 515.7, the figure is more than ten times higher. At the same time, large parts of the population have been vaccinated, and the rapidly spreading Omicron variant is considered less pathogenic. This is one reason why hospitals and other critical infrastructure have not collapsed. But the question remains of what Germany will be up against if the incidence rate exceeds 500.

RKI President Lothar Wieler sees the rapid spread of the new Omicron variant as a "new phase of the pandemic", in which the number of seriously ill patients will be more significant than the number of cases. But so far, the Omicron wave is not hitting the intensive care units hard. Since the first half of December, the number of patients with Coronavirus in intensive care has fallen from around 5000 to 2799 at the last count. Also, according to the RKI, only about half as many people had to be hospitalised because of Coronavirus than at the beginning of December - with the figures remaining stable in the past few days. However, figures may rise because of the time that passes before patients are admitted to hospital or go into intensive care.

Wieler warns that the number of infections - Omicron spreads much faster than Delta - is again likely to impact the number of hospitalisations and deaths. But the crucial question is: how bad will the impact be? "We are unlikely to see a resurgence in the number of intensive care patients in Germany quite yet,” according to Christian Karagiannidis, scientific director of the Divi Intensive Care Registry. With Delta, about one in five patients admitted to hospital required intensive care but with Omicron it is only about one in ten.

For Karagiannidis, deciding on how high the incidence rate (new infections per 100,000 inhabitants and week) will have to be before the country reacts with new measures depends very much on whether Omicron will spread as quickly in Germany as it has in other countries.

“Right now, I think it might be less extreme in Germany because of the comparatively good and strict measures we have in place, such as 2G plus." But there are some open questions regarding the situation in Germany that have to be cleared. “One question is how to react if Omicron affects the elderly and very old. That still worries me," he said. The incidence rate in Germany is currently much higher in young people than in the elderly.

In any case, Karagiannidis believes it is possible to counteract the growing burden in a timely fashion. “Everything won’t explode within two days.” He does not foresee seriously ill patients having to be transferred within Germany again, as was the case at the peak of the Delta wave at the end of 2021.

If German experts want to get a feeling for a possible further course of the pandemic, they should also look to the UK. There, no measures are slowing down Omicron, and the incidence rate has at times exceeded the threshold of 2000, about four times as high as during the Alpha wave a year ago. However, the number of people needing artificial respiration in hospital is much lower: on average, this is currently about 800 patients per day, while a year ago the average was 4000 a day - about five times as high.

Physician Azeem Majeed from Imperial College London still considers the number of infections to be an important indicator, even in Omicron times. Vaccinations have reduced the number of hospital admissions, but not completely stopped them, he told the Deutsche Presse-Agentur.

But the sheer mass of new infections in the UK, a country of 67 million inhabitants, is putting enormous pressure on the country’s health system. According to the Guardian, 24 hospitals have declared a state of emergency since the start of the new year. The army has been deployed to plug gaps. Thousands of emergency patients have had to wait for hours to be treated in recent weeks.

The situation in the UK is of course not one-to-one comparable with that in Germany. Here, the rather large vaccination gap is worrying experts. Should the intensive care units fill up again, politicians will probably have to react.

In view of the rapidly rising number of infections, it is also important to look not only at hospitals but also to other areas of the so-called critical infrastructure, for example the energy and water sectors, where, according to the industry association BDEW, a total of about 282,200 people work. The association cannot say how many of them are key personnel, for example specialists in the troubleshooting or control rooms.

Emergency plans in the companies are regularly reviewed and adapted, if necessary, BDEW explains. "Special precautionary protective measures have been in place since the beginning of the pandemic, especially for core key personnel, to prevent the entry and spread of infections," it says. So far none of the plans have had to be put into practice.

According to BDEW, measures include emergency shift plans with extended working hours or dividing staff into teams that have no contact with each other. Furthermore, additional staff had been trained for particularly important processes. "Employees who have recently retired can also be brought back on board if necessary."

Originaltext: Gisela Gross, Martina Herzog, Larissa Schwedes und Valentin Frimmer, dpa

Translation: Jean Lennox