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.
"Last week, on Wednesday or Thursday, we had to transfer a patient by helicopter to Merano," said Thomas Marx, 43, medical director at the hospital in Freising, a town with 50,000 inhabitants that is about 350 kilometres away by road. 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".
"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."