obvert
Posts: 14050
Joined: 1/17/2011
From: PDX (and now) London, UK
Status: offline
|
quote:
ORIGINAL: Alfred
quote:
ORIGINAL: Chickenboy
quote:
ORIGINAL: RangerJoe
quote:
ORIGINAL: Canoerebel
Any thoughts as to why Germany's doing so well? Is it a demographic thing, a countermeasures thing, a medicine thing, a reporting thing (or more than one)?
A few weeks ago, there was news that Austria and Denmark would be easing countermeasures, starting a few days ago. I haven't seen any updates, so don't know if they postponed that action or proceeded. It'll be interesting to see how that turns out.
Culturally, the Germans are much more reserved and not into hugging acquaintances.
Meh. It's not like the Swiss are known for their ostentatious or salacious interpersonal behavior either. They're not Belgians, for goodness sake  . I think it's something different than just cultural mannerisms for the German difference from the rest of continental Europe.
There are several factors in play.
1. The high number of tests allows the denominator to be larger and therefore the death rate automatically is lower.
2. Testing allows contact tracing. I don't know if Germany is specifically doing this on the quiet but in Australia testing is being used specifically for this purpose. A positive test here results in a telephone contact to every person who has been exposed to the positive testee and a determinati9on is made whether they too have to be tested. This allows for COVID-19 clusters to be identified earlier and quarantined/treated. It slows down the spread rate amongst the rest of the community.
3. There is much we don't know about this corona virus. Some experts suggest ethnicity is a factor. Certainly population density does seem to be relevant for ease of transmission. Although Germany has a population of about 84 million (about a third more than the UK, France, Italy) it is more widely dispersed. There is nothing in size comparable to London or Paris. This lower density would be particularly relevant if the virus had already arrived in Germany (and elsewhere) well before people became aware of its significance.
4. Germany is not rushing to use ventilators. It is very easy for hysterical politicians and journalists to demand more and more ventilators without admitting they are not a panacea. Firstly the recovery rate of those put onto ventilators is not good. Secondly, prolonged reliance on ventilators can easily damage the lungs permanently. Thirdly, you need trained staff to monitor and manage ventilators, who are ipso facto, not available for other tasks. Not to mention the wear and tear on such staff.
5. One can't dismiss the likelihood that Germany is using a different metric to record its statistics compared to that used by the UK, France, Italy etc. Every country is using different metrics which is the fundamental reason why all these case and death graphs provide no meaningful country on country comparison. The fact that a graph is put up by John Hopkins or anyone else, no matter how "prestigious" that institution is held to be, does not change the fact they are merely repeating whatever data is officially released by a country. There is no adjustment of data to apply a common metric. This is why China has such a low death number compared to Western countries.
Alfred
Just commented to answer this as well.
To your point #3 there has been a correlation between severe cases and blood types in Wuhan. This was discussed probably a month ago. Seems to have been lost in the shuffle for most though as in the UK and US there seems to be a more severe response in ethnic minority populations (here labelled BAME) and in the US black and brown minorities. There are also significantly different health profiles due to systematic historically related poverty of these populations, especially in the US, but not as much in the UK where these populations are also experiencing high proportional losses in health professionals especially.
I would doubt that population density is as much a factor considering the early Italian outbreak was in smaller towns and cities, but individual behavioural distance could certainly be a factor, and has been mentioned in some of the articles I've read. Germans do not move as close to speak, do not often use the kiss as a greeting, and have been in a more cold weather climate during early stages of this outbreak than Southern Europeans.
To your point #2, yes, they did not only contact tracing but islolation of contacts with monitoring, especially early. They also closed some factories where outbreaks occurred.
Here is a newer article on this I just found.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-germany-defences-i/pass-the-salt-the-minute-details-that-helped-germany-build-virus-defences-idUSKCN21R1DB
< Message edited by obvert -- 4/19/2020 7:22:42 AM >
_____________________________
"Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm." - Winston Churchill
|
Printable Version
RE: OT: Corona virus - 
New Messages
No New Messages
Hot Topic w/ New Messages
Hot Topic w/o New Messages
Locked w/ New Messages
Locked w/o New Messages
Post New Thread