Medical staff will look after a Covid-19 patient on April 28, 2021 in the Covid-19 intensive care unit of the Magdeburg Clinic in Magdeburg.
RONNY HARTMANN | AFP | Getty Images
Germany was once considered a prime example of how to deal with the corona virus. Almost 50,000 new Covid cases are now being registered every day, triggering a dire warning from an expert of a dramatic increase in deaths.
Germany is in the middle of a so-called fourth Covid wave, as the delta variant spreads with increasing cold. Thursday marks the fourth day in a row that a new daily high was reached, Reuters noted, with the number of new cases at 50,196.
Data from the state’s health department, the Robert Koch Institute, showed that the total number of cases in Germany has now reached 4.89 million and the death toll is 97,198.
The data worries Germany’s officials and health experts.
Outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkel has reportedly called for an urgent meeting with state prime ministers to discuss the country’s response to the Covid crisis. Your chief spokesman, Steffen Seibert, said on Wednesday that the virus is “spreading dramatically” and that a “quick and uniform response” is required.
Leading German virologist Christian Drosten called for urgent measures on Tuesday, warning that the country could see up to 100,000 more deaths from the virus if nothing is done to contain the spread.
In an NDR podcast, Drosten said that 100,000 deaths were a “conservative estimate” and “we have a real emergency at the moment” with millions of Germans still unvaccinated.
Covid vaccines have been clinically proven to significantly reduce the risk of serious infections, hospitalizations and deaths from the virus, although vaccine immunity is known to decline after six months and there have been some “breakthrough infections” among those vaccinated.
At the beginning of this week, the German legislature, which is concentrating on coalition talks to form a new government after the unsuccessful elections in September, proposed a draft law that is to be discussed in the German Bundestag on Thursday. This includes, among other things, plans to reintroduce free Covid-19 tests (which were recently discontinued) and mandatory daily tests for employees and visitors to nursing homes, according to a report by Deutsche Welle.
By and large, lawmakers are generally against a new lockdown, but some states (which may set their own restrictions) have reintroduced some Covid rules and restrictions.
Prime example no longer?
Germany has been lauded for its first response to the Covid pandemic with an efficient testing and tracing program, widespread testing, and high standard of health care that have helped prevent widespread cases and deaths. The country’s early response to a pandemic has been far more successful than that of its Western European neighbors such as France and Italy.
However, like its neighbors, Germany’s vaccination campaign has got off to a slow start and has to deal with persistent vaccination skepticism among the population. So far, 69.8% of the population in Germany have received a vaccination against the virus and 67.3% of the population are fully vaccinated.
This compares with 79.8% of the UK population over 12 years of age who are fully vaccinated.
Germany’s recent sharp spike in Covid cases has been attributed to its lower vaccination rate, prompting politicians to step up the vaccination campaign.
Federal Health Minister Jens Spahn said last week: “We are currently experiencing a pandemic mainly among the unvaccinated and it is massive,” said Lothar Wieler, President of the Robert Koch Institute.
On Thursday, Merkel’s likely successor, Olaf Scholz, said that German vaccination centers should be reopened to encourage more citizens to vaccinate.
“The virus is still among us and threatens the health of the citizens,” said Finance Minister and Chancellor candidate Scholz in a speech in front of parliament, reported Reuters.
Germany is Europe’s largest economy and like its neighbors, lockdowns imposed in 2020 to contain the spread of the virus hit the German economy, which is now also suffering from subsequent supply chain problems.
Volker Wieland, endowed professor for monetary economics at the Institute for Currency and Financial Stability in Germany, told CNBC that there was a reluctance in the country to lock again.
“Given the vaccinations we have and the rules that are available to keep the economy and industry working, we do not forecast any severe consequences this winter. So far the government has said it does not want to impose any new bans on the service sector “, he told Annette Weisbach from CNBC in Germany.
“So the main driver of a slowdown in the service sector would be if there were strict lockdowns in retail, schools and other areas such as hotels and restaurants,” he added.
Not only Germany is experiencing a dramatic increase in cases, France is also experiencing an increase in Covid, again mainly due to the spread of the much more virulent Delta variant. France’s Health Minister Olivier Veran said Wednesday the country was at the beginning of a fifth wave of the pandemic.
In the UK, however, which had seen the number of cases soaring since the end of the summer, the numbers are now starting to decline. Even so, almost 40,000 new daily cases were recorded on Wednesday.
