At the beginning of the pandemic, sick leave rose dramatically – then it fell to record-breaking lows. What is behind these ups and downs.
Health insurance companies recorded a significant increase in sick reports during the corona pandemic. At the beginning of the crisis, between March 16 and April 5, an average of 54 percent more AOK members were on sick leave than in the previous year. However, there are still no detailed evaluations of the causes of the disease, says Alexander Pröbstle, director of the AOK in Würzburg.
The Techniker health insurance company also reports that in March as many of its members reported sick than they had in 20 years. The main reasons given here are colds, said Jens Baas, head of the Techniker Krankenkasse.
Slight symptoms sufficed for sick leave
The district chairman of the Bavarian Family Association, Dr. Christian Pfeiffer from Giebelstadt (district of Würzburg), these figures are not surprising. After all, at the beginning of the pandemic, people were strongly advised to stay at home even with mild cold symptoms. In addition, according to the criteria of the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), only people were tested at the beginning of the corona pandemic who were demonstrably in contact with infected people or who had entered from a risk area. Symptoms alone would not have been enough for a test.
For this reason, he wrote sick patients for safety even with slight signs of a cold. According to his knowledge, the possibility of getting sick on the phone by no means was used. From March 10th to May 31st, there was the possibility to get sick on the phone if you had mild cold symptoms.
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Most patients would have preferred to go to work, reports Pfeiffer. Many would have stressed that they would normally go to work with a slightly dripping nose. But which company would you have wanted to have in operation during this time? This explains the sharp increase in these weeks, says Pfeiffer.
Alexander Pröbstle from the AOK Würzburg reports that the number of sick days in Lower Franconia had already dropped sharply in the Easter holidays (April 6 to 19). On average, the AOK Bayern was four percent below the same period last year.
Nationwide, sickness reports in April were just under 6.5 percent of all employees, according to figures from the Federal Ministry of Health. It is striking that women with a good seven percent were on sick leave significantly more often than men with just under six percent. Nationwide, just over four percent are normal.
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Even before Corona, respiratory diseases were the most common reason for sick reports, says Alexander Pröbstle. However, the most common days off are injuries. With a look at the already carefully evaluated figures from 2019, one discovers primarily regional differences. At 5.4 percent, the sick leave in Lower Franconia is slightly higher than the average in Bavaria with 4.8 percent of all AOK insured. The reasons for this: Companies in Northern Bavaria have significantly older workforces. Upper Bavarian employers, on the other hand, benefit from a large influx of younger workers. This is also evident in cities such as Würzburg, which is 4.4 percent below the Bavarian average.
Covid-19 was rarely the reason for sick leave
As early as May 2020, the nationwide figures were again below the average of the previous year. Incidentally, the diagnosis of Covid-19 played almost no role in the sick leave. The Techniker health insurance calculated that less than 0.4 percent of the members on sick leave in March were coded with the diagnosis Covid-19.
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