Last week, Germany began easing some of the restrictions put in place as a response to the COVID-19 outbreak. The decision appears to have backfired:
But the country reported 1,304 new cases of the virus on Wednesday – up from 1,144 on Tuesday and 1,018 on Monday.
The country’s virus reproduction rate – known as “R” – which measures how many people the average person with Covid-19 infects has also bounced back to just below one.
That means one person with the virus infects one other, on average.
Earlier this month, the rate was at 0.7.
Chancellor Angela Merkel has warned if the R rate increases even slightly above 1 then the country’s health service faces being overwhelmed.
She said: “If we get to a point where each patient is infecting 1.1 people, then by October we will be back at the limits of our health system in terms of intensive-care beds.
“If we get to 1.2 . . . then we will hit the full capacity of our health system as early as July.”
There has also been a steady rise in the number of deaths from 117 on April 25 to 188 on April 28 and the country has already been planning for a second wave of killer coronavirus.
It seems that countries that took the virus seriously from the outset and acted decisively are the only ones that have the outbreak under control. I am thinking of New Zealand and Australia but there are others. There are no shortcuts when it comes to dealing with a pandemic. I understand the eagerness to get back to the pre-COVID-19 days but that is unlikely to happen. I believe this outbreak will change the way we work, our personal priorities, perhaps more so than 9/11 did.
