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Cold wave paralyzes Lower Saxony: high levels of absenteeism from work!
A wave of colds in Lower Saxony will lead to increasing sickness rates in 2025 and shows the need for health promotion.
Cold wave paralyzes Lower Saxony: high levels of absenteeism from work!
A wave of colds at the beginning of the year caused the number of sick people in Lower Saxony to rise significantly. This reports n-tv. According to an evaluation by DAK-Gesundheit, days missed due to respiratory diseases increased by 16 percent compared to the previous year. In the first half of 2025, sick leave in Lower Saxony was 5.7 percent, which corresponds to a decrease of 0.1 percentage points compared to the first half of 2024. Fortunately, the decline also led to a shorter average duration of illness, which is now 9.3 days.
Overall, the figures show that respiratory diseases accounted for 21 percent of all sick leave, followed by musculoskeletal diseases at 18 percent and mental illnesses at 17 percent. This is worth warning the DAK; The country's head Dirk Vennekold emphasized that the need to strengthen workplace health promotion is more urgent than ever.
Particularly affected: respiratory diseases
But respiratory diseases don't just contribute to high levels of sickness in the first half of the year: in the first quarter of 2025, the DAK recorded 153.7 days of absence per 100 employees, an increase of 29.6 percent compared to the previous year. The sickness rate was 6.2 percent, slightly above the previous year's figure of 6.1 percent. This means that on average 62 out of 1,000 employees were on sick leave each day from January to March.
An almost constant proportion of those affected came from the age group of men (40 percent) and women (44 percent), with respiratory diseases being the largest cause of absenteeism. There were also slight declines in mental illness compared to the previous year. The analysis refers to around 203,000 DAK-insured employees in Lower Saxony, evaluated by the Berlin IGES Institute.
Current situation with respiratory diseases
In Lower Saxony, current data from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) on respiratory diseases such as coughs, colds and sore throats are also alarming. These illnesses are common and medically divide them into several categories, including acute respiratory illnesses and influenza-like illnesses. Loud news.de Recent statistics show that the North (West) region has an incidence of 3,400 respiratory diseases per 100,000 inhabitants.
The incidence of flu-like illnesses is 600 per 100,000 inhabitants, and these values are also below the national average. A look at the Corona situation in Lower Saxony also shows that the 7-day incidence is 0.8 per 100,000 inhabitants; However, there were 67 new corona cases in the last week. So while we grapple with respiratory illnesses, the specter of the pandemic remains present.
In view of this challenging situation, it is clear that preventive measures and increased company health promotion play an important role in protecting and improving the health of employees in Lower Saxony.