Germany faces a ‘really terrible Christmas’ unless tough new Covid restrictions are imposed, health chief warns as overflowing Bavarian hospital sends patients to ITALY

• Health officials have warned of a ‘really terrible Christmas’ if cases keep soaring
• Fourth wave has forced Germany to sent patients to northern Italy for treatment 
• 65,371 Covid-19 cases were reported on Wednesday as cases continued to surge 
• Authorities blamed the latest wave on the unvaccinated, over 30% of population 

Germany faces a ‘really terrible Christmas’ unless tough new Covid-19 restrictions are imposed, a health chief has warned. 

‘We are currently heading toward a serious emergency,’ Lothar Wieler, the director of the Robert Koch Institute, Germany’s disease control agency, said. ‘We are going to have a really terrible Christmas if we don’t take countermeasures now.’ 

The warning comes as a hospital in Bavaria’s Freising last week made the unprecedented decision to transfer a Covid-19 patient to northern Italy because it ‘had no more capacity to receive them, and the surrounding hospitals were also full.’ 

A fourth ferocious wave has sent infections to record highs in Europe’s biggest economy, putting hospitals also hit by the double whammy of a shortfall of personnel under immense strain.

German authorities have blamed the latest surge in infections on the unvaccinated, more than 30 per cent of the population, and pleaded with people to get the jab.   

It comes as Austria this week confined some 2million unvaccinated people to their homes amid soaring cases, a move the Czech Republic will introduce from Monday and both Italy and Germany have said they are considering.  

A ferocious fourth wave has sent infections to record highs in Germany, putting hospitals in parts of the country under immense strain and a ‘normal’ Christmas at risk (pictured, a Christmas market in Bonn, Germany on November 17)

A hospital in Bavaria’s Freising last week made the unprecedented decision to transfer a Covid-19 patient to northern Italy amid soaring cases 

Cases are rapidly rising across the country and have hit record levels in recent weeks as a relatively low jab rate and slow booster drive combined to speed up infections

German lawmakers are debating measures Thursday that would replace the nationwide epidemic rules, which will expire at the end of the month.

The Robert Koch Institute today said 65,371 newly confirmed cases were reported in a single day, continuing the upward trend that experts have been warning about for weeks. 

Wieler warned that hospitals across Germany are struggling to find beds for Covid-19 patients and those with other illnesses. 

He also called for the closure of clubs and bars, an end to large-scale events and access to many parts of public life to be limited to those with vaccine or recovery certificates. 

Germany’s vaccination rate stands at 67.7 per cent but some regions have jab take-up as low as 57.6 per cent. Wieler said the country needs to increase its vaccination rates to significantly above 75 per cent.  

Chancellor Angela Merkel made a new plea on Wednesday for the unvaccinated to get jabbed, saying ‘when enough people are vaccinated, that is the way out of the pandemic’.

In a bid to get more to take the jab, Germany’s parliament is poised to vote through new regulations for more curbs on the unvaccinated.

Under proposals drafted by the three parties in talks to form Germany’s new government, unvaccinated people will soon have to produce a negative test to use public transport or go to the office. 

The head of Germany’s disease control agency Lothar Wieler (pictured) has warned that the country faces a ‘really terrible Christmas’ unless steps are taken to counter the sharp rise in Covid-19 infections

Chancellor Angela Merkel made a new plea on Wednesday for the unvaccinated to get jabbed, saying ‘when enough people are vaccinated, that is the way out of the pandemic’ 

Deaths are nowhere near the levels seen during the first and second wave of Covid, but have started to climb rapidly amid fears they could soon top the previous peaks

Through the highs and lows spanning 18 months of the pandemic, Germany had on many occasions taken in patients from neighbouring countries as hospitals elsewhere ran out of space.  

While the absolute number of patients in intensive care still lies below the peak a year ago, this time around, hospitals are also ailing from the double whammy of a shortfall in personnel that has seriously hampered their ability to cope. 

The medical director at the hospital in Freising, Thomas Marx, 43, said: ‘Last week, on Wednesday or Thursday, we had to transfer a patient by helicopter to Merano.

‘We had no more capacity to receive them, and the surrounding Bavarian hospitals were also full,’ he said.

The hospital also had to send another patient to another Bavarian town Regensburg over the weekend.

‘We are at the limits of our capacity, which is why we have to resort to these means,’ he said.

Marx’s service is handling 13 intensive care cases at the moment, three more than it has capacity for. Five of them are coronavirus patients, all of whom are unvaccinated.

At the intensive care unit of Munich Clinic Schwabing, senior doctor Niklas Schneider voiced frustration over vaccine resistance in some quarters.

‘I find it really astonishing that vaccination is not accepted by the masses even though we have the possibility to get it. It is not completely understandable to me that so many people are allowing themselves to be misled by some horror stories about vaccines,’ he said.

2: A nurse assists a Covid-19 patient, in the new ward to deal with the Covid-19 emergency set up in the Fiera del Levante, on November 12, in Bari, Italy

There were 7,815 new Covid-19 cases in Italy on Tuesday, an increase of 28 per cent on the same day last week

There were 74 new deaths in Italy on Tuesday, a rise of 9 per cent on the same day last week 

Like the hospital in Freising, the Munich clinic is at full capacity.

‘The team is holding on, but we are incredibly frustrated… because at the end of the day we are the last resort for everything that is wrong with society as a whole,’ said Schneider.

‘The sick people who come to us, who are in mortal danger, we have to treat them, they need help. It doesn’t matter if they were previously anti-Corona, anti-vaccine or double-vaccinated, although we don’t have any of the latter in the ward.’

Besides the relatively low vaccine take-up compared to other parts of western Europe, health staff also complain that more should also have been done to bolster their capacity.

Only one in four German hospitals are able to maintain a regular intensive care service at the moment, said Spiegel magazine. Many others say that beyond demand, a major problem is an acute shortage of trained personnel.

Already a chronic problem before the pandemic, long hours, low pay and stress during the coronavirus crisis have only served to put even more people off a job in the healthcare sector.

Schneider noted that there are now far fewer health workers than in the first wave. Likewise, his colleague in Freising voiced ‘incomprehension’ over the latest crisis.

‘I admire the calmness with which the staff operate, with which we face this new challenge with such professionalism,’ Marx said. ‘But I also know that some people, inside, are boiling, even if they don’t let it spill out.’ 

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