Germany no longer COVID-19 ‘exception’
Second wave overwhelms testing system
Berlin• As Germany passed the grim milestone of a million coronavirus infections Friday, the lustre of its success against the first wave has somewhat faded.
In the spring, no major country in Europe was as effective at containing the virus, and Britain and others could only look on in envy. But the second wave has engulfed Germany along with the rest of Europe, and there is no more talk of a “German exception.”
Daily new infections remain below those in other western European nations, but in contrast to its neighbours, where advances in treating the virus have resulted in fewer deaths this time around, Germany is seeing a higher daily toll.
On Wednesday, it recorded 410 deaths, its highest 24- hour toll since the pandemic began. The previous record, set on April 16, was 315.
So has Germany got its response wrong this time, or has the virus just caught up with it?
In part, there may simply be more deaths this time because there are more infections, say scientists. The rate of deaths per infection is far lower than during the first wave in Germany, as in the U.K. and elsewhere.
But there are other underlying factors behind the change that have as much to do with what countries like the U. K. got wrong during the first wave as anything Germany is doing now.
“My impression is that the situation in Germany and Great Britain is currently quite similar in terms of infections and deaths — perhaps a little better in Germany, if you look at the seven- day incidence, which makes more sense than looking at the daily positive tests,” said Hajo Zeeb of Leibniz Institute for Prevention Research and Epidemiology. “There are no longer any major differences. The U. K. had bigger problems in the first wave, and has now been able to improve a bit in terms of death rates. Germany did better in the first phase, but did not succeed in maintaining that over the summer.”
One thing experts agree Germany got right in the first wave was test and trace. While Britain struggled to set up an effective system, Germany had its ready before the virus reached Europe and was remarkably effective at tracing and containing chains of infection.
But second time around, its test and trace system has been overwhelmed by the sheer number of positive tests. There simply aren’t the resources to chase every chain of infection.
Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, announced plans to recruit 100,000 tracing staff in October, but that wasn’t enough and it was the crisis in contact tracing that prompted a new lockdown.
The Robert Koch Institute, Germany’s centre for disease control, points to another key difference from the spring. “There are significantly higher numbers of cases than in the first wave, but the age groups affected are decisive. This time there are more cases among the elderly,” said a spokesman.
German virologists concede they were lucky in one key respect during the first wave: the virus was largely brought to Germany by people returning from skiing holidays. That meant it initially infected the young, and the authorities were able to prevent it spreading to the elderly.
That is in marked contrast to the U. K., where the fatal decision was made to send elderly people from hospital to care homes without testing, allowing the virus to spread like wildfire among the most vulnerable.
This time, however, the number of infections has meant Germany has been unable to prevent the virus spreading to the elderly.
However, scientists caution that the dramatic difference in testing since the spring means it is difficult to be certain of the reasons behind the change in deaths. Max Geraedts, epidemiologist at Marburg University, said: “You have to bear in mind that there were around 350,000 tests a week during the first wave, while there are now 1.4 million.
“We don’t really know that there weren’t as many deaths during the first wave as there are currently, because we didn’t test as much, or investigate the deaths the same way.
“During the first wave, the majority of the infections came in clusters, while in the second wave there were more scattered cases.
“That could mean more people from high-risk groups are infected. One could speculate like this forever.”