German healthcare rises to the challenge
An extensive medical network and strict regulations have helped keep down the toll from coronavirus.
BERLIN — Germany seems to have weathered the early phase of the coronavirus scare with fewer deaths than many nations, reporting only three fatalities out of about 1,900 recorded cases as of Wednesday.
Many health professionals point to a variety of reasons for the results so far, including that Germany, a leader in the 27-nation European Union, has some builtin advantages that could help keep the mortality rate noticeably lower than many countries.
Germany has a widespread network of regional laboratories and was able to do extensive testing for coronavirus when it became known in recent weeks. It has one of the most expensive and extensive public healthcare systems in the world with national healthcare insurance for everyone.
Germany also is considered to have one of the world’s highest concentrations of hospitals — 1,900 for a population of 82 million. And workers, who traditionally see high levels of job security in the country, tend to stay home when they notice symptoms of an illness.
Some medical professionals and political leaders said in recent days that the number of people infected with the coronavirus and the resulting deaths are bound to increase substantially, but that Germany certainly has benefited from preparation and other factors.
Chancellor Angela
Merkel, who has repeatedly urged the nation to remain calm by saying how well-prepared Germany is, warned at a news conference Wednesday that up to 60% to 70% of the population could get infected at some point.
“You have to understand that if the virus is there, and the population has no immunity yet to this virus, there are no vaccines and no therapy so far, a high percentage – experts say 60 to 70% — of the population will get infected,” Merkel said. That’s why “all the measures we’re taking are of great significance because they are buying time for us — it really matters what we’re doing and it’s not in vain.”
Merkel’s top medical advisor, Lothar Wieler, president of the Robert Koch Institute, said it was unknown how long it would take for the virus to spread that far.
Italy has been struck harder, leading Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte to announce Monday that all 60 million Italians would face limitations on movement. Virus deaths in Italy, Europe’s hardest-hit country, had climbed to more than 460 and total cases had reached nearly 9,200 at the time. Italy has seen more than 820 deaths and more than 12,460 cases.
“We were first of all lucky that Italy was the first country in Europe hit, so Germany got advance warning and had some time to brace for it inevitably moving here,” Christoph Specht, a doctor and disease specialist, said in an interview.
“German authorities had a head start and were able to move to quickly cancel some big events, issue public warnings about hygiene that are being heeded and do other important things to try to slow down the spread,” Specht said. “We’re lucky too that relatively few of those infected here are elderly, unlike in Italy.”
In addition to its network of hospitals, the country apparently has benefited from its formidable Gesundheitsamt structure of public health offices that exert rigorous controls, enforcing rules and regulations on hygiene and healthcare. There are more than 300 public health offices across the country and they are endowed with considerable authority.
The public health offices can, for instance, order schools or companies to close their doors and order people suspected of being infected to stay in quarantine at home or face fines and even jail for disobedience.
Merkel had moved to make sure the nation remained calm when concerns arose immediately after the swift cancellation in late February of the world’s largest tourism convention, the ITB, with 160,000 people from around the world on their way to Berlin. It seemed like a draconian measure at the time when hardly anyone in Germany had been infected.
“The conditions to deal with the virus in Germany are among the best in the world,” Merkel said confidently.
In addition to the hundreds of coronavirus-related deaths in Italy, dozens of people have died in France and Spain and more than 30 in the United States.
Christian Drosten, a leading virologist at the Charite hospital in Berlin, said there was no guarantee that the situation in Germany wouldn’t change dramatically.
There were 35,000 coronavirus tests done in private practices last week, with an unknown number also being carried out at hospitals, according to the KBV association of German physicians. The country has ramped up capacity and can now perform 12,000 tests a day.
Karl Lauterbach, a leader in Parliament for the center-left Social Democratic Party, said on German Radio on Tuesday that the country’s crisis management had worked well “but that advantage can quickly be lost in the next phase.”
Germans call in sick an average of 17 days a year, according to government figures. They visit their doctors an average of 17 times a year as well, according to a 2016 survey by KBV.
The government has also stepped in with pragmatic measures to make it easier for companies hit hard by the pandemic to receive state support to help them pay furloughed workers rather than resorting to layoffs. It also appealed Monday to organizers to cancel all public events with more than 1,000 people in an effort to slow the spread of the virus.
North Rhine-Westphalia state, where hundreds of people have tested positive, on Tuesday announced that all events with more than 1,000 participants would be immediately canceled. Many other states followed suit on Wednesday.