3 ms·

Germany (like a few other countries) is in the situation "too much lockdown, too few sick". So it has to remove those lockdowns. This creates a fun political d

• _ph_ 7y ago
  I strongly disagree with the statement, that we have "too few sick" here in Germany. With the lockdown, we managed to just keep the health system from being completely overloaded in the most infected regions. But that already at the price of postponing non-urgent medical procedures. So yes, there are a few free beds in hospitals still, but we might still need them. What is not accounted for is, that supplies (masks...) are still scarce and more importandly, most medical personal is working at an unsustainable intensity. There is plenty of reason of desiring even less sick people. The reasons for reducing the lockdown are practical, social and economic. The lockdown is hard on many people, depending on their social and living situation. Especially in dense cities, most people don't have housing which was designed to be confined to it for many weeks. And apart from that, people want to go out, want to meet other people again. Need to do shopping for clothing, get a haircut. Also, we should try to keep the economy from collapsing. The trick will be to reduce the lockdown while keeping the minimum safety in place and without too many people acting reckless and endangering the population again.
  • luckylion 7y ago
    > I strongly disagree with the statement, that we have "too few sick" here in Germany. We want to be close to maximum capacity (but just under) though, and we're not. If "the curve" is too flat, it gets drawn out much more than necessary, and nobody should fool themselves into thinking that this can be a permanent setup. You'll need martial law if you want to confine everyone to their homes for 12+ months.
    • _ph_ 7y ago
      That is why we have to find a way out of the lockdown: because, as I wrote, you can't confine people to their home for too long. But not because we have "too few sick". If you are playing towards herd immunity: it doesn't look like we are getting there with "acceptable" infection rates. The disease is too nasty for that. So we have to reduce the lockdown in a way so that the infection rate does not increase significantly.
  • chvid 7y ago
    It is the same "problem" here in Denmark; massive lockdown and overcapacity for COVID19 treatment. The current level of lockdown is unmaintainable as this virus is probably going to be here for a year or two. However it is very hard for our politicians to say: It is too expensive to save these lives - other lives are cheaper to save. In a way the media coverage has been so effective that people actually do not want the restrictions lifted.
    • _ph_ 7y ago
      If enough people stay careful, it is easier to lift the restrictions. As the grocery stores stayed open during the lockdown, we can see that it is reasonable safe to interact with other people, if the minimum distances are obeyed and proper hygene is used. After this model, most other shops should be allowed to open again as long as people keep their distances. Not sure what to do about the previously crowded shopping streets in the city centers. Perhaps there, only half of the shops should be allowed to open on alternating days.
    • Dahoon 7y ago
      You clearly live in a different Denmark than I do. Maybe you read too much Ekstra Bladet. We are following the curve just as planned - not over and not under. There are no "overcapacity" and the lockdown isn't "massive" at all. Only a tiny percentage of shops are closed down and the rest isn't close to what a lot of other countries are doing. Stop spreading FUD and try to appreciate we have a system that is working great in this crisis.
      • chvid 7y ago
        Thanks for the insults. You can follow the writings of our ex pm Lars Lokke who says something similar to what I wrote.
• Lewton 7y ago
  Germany is NOT at a place where the lockdown is too strong. The spread is still growing exponentially and they will run into issues a few weeks from now if it continues at this rate. You can’t keep everything open and then shut everything down once you’re at capacity, as it takes three weeks for lockdown measures to show up in the hospitalization rates.
  • bayesian_horse 7y ago
    Currently the R0 in Germany has gone below 1, according to some models. I don't think the measures will be softened before May, but according to the authorities, the ICU capacity will not be overburdened. Stressed to the maximum, yes, but not (or not much) over capacity. Another issue is that with an R0 this low there will be a much lower rate of immunity. Which in turn means the restrictions can't be lifted because then the whole mess starts up again.
    • deleted 7y ago
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    • Lewton 7y ago
      > I don't think the measures will be softened before May, but according to the authorities, the ICU capacity will not be overburdened. Stressed to the maximum, yes, but not (or not much) over capacity. Yes, sounds like Germany nailed it > Another issue is that with an R0 this low there will be a much lower rate of immunity. Which in turn means the restrictions can't be lifted because then the whole mess starts up again. Literally no way to avoid this if you want to avoid overrunning the hospitals
      • bayesian_horse 7y ago
        There will be a question of whether or not a slightly higher R0 would be beneficial. It's clear that we can't hold this up until the vaccines are ready. The antibody studies will be crucial to determine how much immunity is there. Ideally we would take back the restrictions when immunity has broadened enough. But that might take too long. I don't think this kind of shut down is sustainable for another two months.
• zwaps 7y ago
  I disagree. If we can push the R0 low enough such that active case numbers decline to be less than a thousand, we can implement aggressive test/trace measures that would allow us to lift restrictions altogether, hopefully forever. We need an infrastructure to test people rapidly and often, we need an infrastructure to develop rapid containment and quarantines and so forth. We need to act, as if we'd never get rid of this virus. As if this virus were now a fact of life. This is the way to go, because developing this capability will be useful for the future as well. If, instead, our hospitals are at the limits and everyone is on full lock down, no such capabilities will be developed. The health care system will just struggle to keep people from dying and we may have the same situation when this or another virus returns. There are other considerations for this, of course. First, fewer people will die. Second, it's not clear how immune a population can be to this virus. And even if herd immunity turns out to be viable, having a low R0 puts us into a waiting position where we can let the virus infect young and healthy people if that's a wise decision.
  • ygra 7y ago
    As far as I'm aware, contact tracing has never really stopped in Germany, despite the lockdown. Since both tracing (via local Gesundheitsämter) and testing (via lots of local labs) is distributed and not centralized, you can still effectively implement contact tracing in places where you're not overwhelmed. And there's lots of such places, despite the growing numbers. Unlike Italy, Spain, or the US, Germany wasn't hit that hard in a single area (except Heinsberg, but that happened to be right in the middle of a gigantic metropolitan area, so there's plenty of infrastructure to deal with that). Cases are spread out all over the country and so is testing and tracing capacity.
  • _ph_ 7y ago
    Fully agree. Just one comment: there is a middle ground, where we lift most, but not all restrictions. While we keep a lot of anti-infection measures. For example, most businesses can open, with the distance rules still paid attention too. But we would avoild to have the most critical events, like big parties, trade shows, concerts, football games. And of course, still try to maintain proper hygene, like hand washing and possibly mask wearing. By this we could reduce the risk of infections by a huge amount compared to the pre-lockdown behavior but still have a pretty normal life. If we managed to get the number of infectios people small enough during the lock down, together with active measures like testing, tracking, etc. it might be good enough to keep the infection rate at or below 1.