German ICU doctor says he's never seen this many people ill

The number of people in Germany currently suffering from an infection or illness has reached historic dimensions, an Intensive Care Unit medic has said.

"The sickness rate across the population is currently extremely high, I have never experienced anything like it," the president of the German Society for Internal Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine, Christian Karagiannidis, told the Saturday edition of the Rheinische Post newspaper.

In many regions, almost all ICU beds are occupied, Karagiannidis said, adding that coronavirus infections weren't the main problem anymore.

"At the moment we are fighting a very wide range of illnesses: Flu, RS virus, coronavirus and other respiratory diseases, plus the usual emergencies," the doctor said.

Karagiannidis said he was banking on the upcoming Christmas holidays to bring some relief. "Then the volume in the clinics usually ebbs away and hospital capacities increase again."

Besides an extremely high number of patients, Germany's hospitals are currently also struggling with supply bottlenecks of a number of drugs.

Karagiannidis called on the state to have certain medicines produced ahead of time and kept in stock, in cooperation with local pharmaceutical manufacturers, so that they are always available in sufficient quantities.

"This will be expensive for the nation, but I find it worrying for a country like Germany that we have had to deal with such shortages again and again for a long time and that this shortage has become particularly acute this year because of the many infections," Karagiannidis said.

In comments to Rheinische Post, Bavaria's state Health Minister Klaus Holetschek even called on the government to convene an emergency meeting before the holidays to find a solution together with representatives for the health sector and industry in light of the medication shortages.