Brwned
Have you ever been in love before?
- Joined
- Apr 18, 2008
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- 50,937
They are but how large an increase is the question. When Merkel talked about it a month ago she said a reproduction rate of 1.1 - which they're at now - would overwhelm their system by October. At 1.3 it would be overwhelmed by June. She explained it pretty plainly here.Pardon my ignorance but Germany are fully equipped to handle a large increase in hospitalised patients with a reasonable survival rate, right? Plus, warnings are in place for at risk people to stay at home and stay safe from family members going out?
Does this not mean that herd immunity is in play in a controlled manner?
Their understanding of the situation has evolved since then and I suspect their model predicts less drastic outcomes at this stage, but it isn't the case that they can just let the consistently R0 increase because they've got such a healthy healthcare system.
They've got thresholds to control things, so if more 50 cases per 100,000 people appear then restrictions are reimposed at a local level. The places where they've passed the thresholds still seem to be triggered by large numbers indoors for sustained periods - meat packing plants and care homes - but the general increase in the R0 is a broader issue.
Ultimately every country has said that a) the lockdown relaxation is conditional, so if thresholds are broken then there is always the possibility of restrictions being reimposed and b) we don't have very good information on what individual effect each restriction has. So it is entirely expected that the R0 will increase as the lockdown is relaxed and they should get a better idea of what impact each restriction has, and likely reconfigure the set of restrictions as the evidence comes in. Part of what factors into that is adherence to certain relaxations e.g. so far people have been more likely to abuse the public protest crowd limits than some of the other restrictions.
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