The Federal Statistical Office recently reported the figures on the density of care in terms of hospital and intensive care beds in Germany compared to other OECD countries where the data originate from various surveys of the past seven years. According to these figures, Germany scores (very) well in an international comparison with a high supply density. As far as the density of intensive care beds is concerned, Germany is far ahead with 33.9 beds per 100,000 inhabitants, followed by Austria with 28.9; USA 25.8; Spain 9.7; Italy 8.6. As a comparison with 33 OECD member states shows, the level of hospital beds is also generally good with 6 beds per 1,000 inhabitants. The situation is only better in Japan (7.8 per 1,000 inhabitants) and South Korea (7.1). France follows in fourth place with only 3.1 hospital beds, then Italy 2.6; USA and Spain 2.4; Canada, Sweden, Chile each with 2.0 beds. According to the German Hospital Federation (DKG), the number of intensive care beds before the corona pandemic was 28,000. However, this number has been increased to 40,000, 30,000 of which are equipped with respirators. DKG President Gerald Gaß believes that a doubling of the number of intensive care beds to 56,000 cannot be excluded if a large number of COVID 19 patients require intensive care measures. Currently, only about 2,000 beds are occupied. In the event of an emergency of further coronavirus expansion, the ventilators are procured through three different channels, including new purchases, the reactivation of old equipment and also the internal redeployment from hospital recovery rooms. Normal hospital beds are also currently experiencing vacancies, as operations that could have been planned have been postponed. For example, only about 50 percent of all beds are currently occupied. The occupancy rate is otherwise, in non-crisis periods, between 75 and 80 percent.
