Coronavirus The number of coronary patients has leveled off in Hus hospitals – the direction of the epidemic is still difficult to predict

Coronary patients the number of hospitals in the Helsinki and Uusimaa Hospital District (Hus) has stopped growing. However, it is premature to predict whether the stoppage will be permanent, says chief infectious disease doctor. Asko Järvinen.

“Over the past week, the number of patients has leveled off, but the trend and direction are difficult to predict,” Järvinen said at a press conference at Hus on Wednesday.

Järvinen already said on Tuesday in the HS casethat the number of patients in specialist care has been in the same figures for a week and has also fallen slightly.

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On the other hand, the number of coronary patients has continued to rise sharply in health center hospitals, which include especially elderly and mildly ill patients who still need treatment. Therefore, the total number will increase.

Senior physician Tuija Leino The modeling team at the Department of Health and Welfare also says that a week-long stabilization in Hus does not yet indicate that the epidemic is slowing down.

The load on the hospital may be affected by the fact that omicron causes a milder disease and requires shorter treatment periods in hospitals, Leino says. In the United States, the study found that treatment periods for omicron patients were up to 70 percent shorter compared to delta patients.

In Hus hospitals, delta patients have been replaced by omicron patients during January. In addition, young people, who are less likely to be hospitalized and have shorter treatment periods than their parents, have become infected in recent weeks.

“The good distribution of hospitals may be partly explained by the age distribution of those infected,” says Järvinen.

Over time, however, infections are likely to reach older populations as well.

Also Hus’s infection rates appear to be declining. However, in terms of infections, the statistics are not true.

The numbers have stopped growing because testing capacity has already been exceeded by Christmas, says Husin’s director of diagnostics Lasse Lehtonen.

“I don’t think the infections have started to decline. And they won’t turn until so many are sick that there are no more new patients available for the virus. ”

There is no good measure to monitor the situation now, Lehtonen says.

Tests are still being carried out in the Hus area in about 10,000 days, although the testing criteria have been tightened. According to Lehtonen, the share of positive results was already 46 percent on Tuesday.

According to Järvinen, Hus has calculated his own and much-tested Danish numbers by comparing that at the current rate, 5–10 per cent of the area’s residents become infected every week.

“Then the peak of infections may be close,” Järvinen said.

THL has presented a nationwide estimate that the peak will be reached at the turn of January-February. However, the metropolitan area is ahead of the rest of the country in the epidemic.

Järvinen estimates that the number of infections and patients will remain significant in any case some weeks. Hus has prepared for the fact that there will be enough corona patients in the hospitals for the spring winter as well. According to Järvinen, however, forecasting the amount is difficult.

Bridge currently, the number of coronary patients in Hus wards is in the same range as during the first corona spring 2020 and the spring winter 2021 epidemic. There are fewer patients in intensive care than during previous peaks.

In relation to the number of infections, a much smaller number have had to be treated than in previous waves. The crucial merit in this is vaccinations. In addition, omicron itself causes a less severe form of the disease than previous viral variants.

The burden of disease is even lighter than recorded, given that the figures include a growing number of patients who have been hospitalized for another reason but have been found to be corona-positive there.

Infections reported as side effects have recently occurred in 20 to 30 percent of coronary cases at Hus hospitals. As the epidemic expands, the number is likely to increase further.