Many on sick leave

Summer flu in Upper Austria as an uninvited vacation guest

Pharmacies are very busy. Cold and cough remedies are currently in high demand among many people.

(Bild: Wenzel Markus)

If you have to go to the doctor at the moment, you won't usually be alone in the waiting room. Almost 40,000 Upper Austrians insured with the health insurance fund are on sick leave. Flu-like infections and the flu are causing havoc. But corona is also an issue again.

Coughs, colds, hoarseness - conditions that you would normally associate with winter. But many Upper Austrians are currently suffering from them, often for weeks on end. The logical consequence: the number of sick days has been relatively high over the past two weeks. 38,740 people were registered as sick with the Austrian Health Insurance Fund in calendar week 28 (July 8 to 14). A week earlier, there were even 200 more.

More respiratory illnesses
However, the comparison with the previous year is striking. Although there were a similar number of people on sick leave at the same time, there were significantly fewer flu-like infections, influenza and, above all, coronavirus. 319 people are currently registered as sick because of this, compared to 157 a year ago.

Lots of viruses in wastewater
This is not a surprise, as wastewater monitoring also shows that the current coronavirus load is significantly higher than in July 2023. "However, the current variant is very mild," says lung specialist Bernd Lamprecht from the Kepler University Hospital in Linz.