Low death rate in Germany

[Malteserdiet]

Germany is traditionally known as a nation that follows rules and runs a very efficient system. Italy, France, Spain and the UK less so - although of course all have their own positive merits.

Could this be a factor as to why they so far have a relatively low death rate? As of last night, Germany had over 9000 cases and 24 deaths. The UK has just over 2000 confirmed cases and yet already 71 deaths.

Perhaps we all need to take heed of the German people’s willingness to listen to and follow their government’s advice and do the same here to help reduce the impact of this virus.

If this is indeed a correct assessment of what’s going on then I would urge Boris to make this connection in his next speech to the UK public and hope that we can achieve the same.

www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/coronavirus-why-is-germanys-death-rate-from-covid-19-lower-than-other-countries-0r60jpt7g

Germans are definitely cleaner than us in general and they are also more cautious. They all tend to think collectively whereas we are very much encouraged to be individuals. Maybe they have taken it more seriously and been more considerate of others from the start?

@leemiller my impression (not backed up by figures) is that intergenerational living is pretty common - certainly where we are there are a lot of families who live in 2-family houses, with the grandparents in say the ground floor apartment and the kid and grandkids upstairs. They also have this concept of Generationshäuser where there's a deliberate effort to get a mixture of ages of people living in the same block.

Germany has a very high rate of people living alone - 41%, above the EU average of 33%. (2016 figures at de.statista.com/infografik/10511/einpersonenhaushalte-in-der-eu/
Italy - 33%, the UK - 31%

2015 statistics www.destatis.de/DE/Presse/Pressemitteilungen/2016/07/PD16_263_122.html
Between 1995 and 2015, the number of German households with 3+ generations fell from 351,000 to 209,000. In the same period, the number of households where the middle generation lived with single children fell from 12.8 to 11 million. In 266,000 households, the middle generation lived with their parents in 2015 (also a decline in numbers).

Maybe more testing means identifying chains of infection and therefore better protection for vulnerable groups?

Loads more testing
If you fit criteria you send a test off
Imagine!

thanks @anothernotherone i didn't know about the Living Overseas board.

Just read a post from a German and it hardly sounds like a utopia. The hospitals are full now, she's in a lockdown, and trying to shop sounds a lot worse than here.

She wished us all well as we don't seem to have the faintest idea what's coming. She then was accused of scaremongering, naturally.

@SnoozyLou She's not in a lockdown unless she lives in the one single German town that set up a lockdown yesterday evening. She will be self-isolating.

which one is that ravenmum? I've pretty much given up on the news

"Das Landratsamt Tirschenreuth verhängte wegen der Verbreitung des Coronavirus für die Stadt Mitterteich eine Ausgangssperre. Es ist die erste Stadt in Bayern mit einer solchen Maßnahme. Sie soll bis zum 2. April dauern, wie die Behörde mitteilte. Der dortige Landkreis hatte bereits über 40 bestätigte Covid-19-Fälle, von denen sieben beatmet werden müssen." www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/article206578991/Coronavirus-Massnahmen-Erste-Ausgangssperre-in-Bayern-verhaengt.html

There will be a wider lockdown, same as everywhere else, but it hasn't happened yet.
Yesterday Merkel did a prerecorded speech - she normally only does it for the New Year. Very carefully scripted to sound "presidential" in the pre-Trump meaning of the word; got a very good reception in the newspapers, with people saying that she is the right chancellor for the moment, as a rational physicist.
www.n-tv.de/politik/Merkels-Rede-im-Wortlaut-article21652668.html

is anyone else wondering why Bayern has gone totally nuclear on this? (I mean i think the measures in the other Länder could be tightened since some people still seem to be going out quite a lot)

As scientist said they could not work out the real death rate of Covid then if Germany does not count those with under lying health conditions that would sadly have taken them anyway and was the primary factor, then this means their numbers would potentially give insight into the actual death rate of Covid alone.

Interesting Bluntness. Wonder what the age range is in Germany then.

I haven't seen anything here about patients with underlying conditions not being counted. Maybe just as people don't report on things that are normal locally - but if someone has a source for that I'd be interested.

There is a Telegraph article about the low rate of infection in Germany. It makes the point that any German doctor can authorise testing and it will be covered by insurance. Thus freeing doctors from reliance on centralized state policies.

In part, that is because of the different way healthcare is funded in Germany. Public health insurance is compulsory and collected at source alongside income tax — but it is passed directly to insurance funds and never enters government coffers, effectively firewalling health funding

DH returned yesterday from a small and necessary shopping trip of fruit and eggs to report that it was a holiday atmosphere - lots of old people but also younger people and families walking about in our littlw suburb centre, the ice-cream parlour was very busy, people swanning about without a care. And we are self-isolating (no reason, just civic duty) to protect these very people. Strange. We are going to have to lockdown soon because the rate of new cases is doubling every two days and Frau Merkel keeps giving very stern speeches asking people to take things seriously.

NRW here btw.

How does it work under the Federal system? Is Merkel able to lockdown the country or is that not in her power?

I currently follow two sets of statistics. BNO News and Wikipedia (who update at the end of each day rather than throughout the day).

An odd thing has happened.

I've been tracking notified cases for a couple of weeks, UK against Italy, Spain, France and Germany using the wiki update figures at the end of each day which have broadly been in line with BNO statistics.

Yesterday the figures for Germany changed and not just those of yesterday, back to 9 March. Several days worth of stats have been altered, all downwards. On 17 March the wiki figures I recorded were 9360 cases. Yesterday the figure for 17 March was 7156. Thats more than 2k cases removed in just one day. Stats for all other countries remained the same as my spreadsheet. Just Germany.

So currently wiki is saying German cases as at 19 March at 10,999 but BNO is reporting at 13,083.

Definitely something strange going on.

I don't know they are having "Corona" parties in Berlin, and are looking to implement a curfew and German Telecom to assist in tracking.

There's literally nobody outside in our part of Bavaria...

Maybe NRW people are too sociable and that's why they have more cases even though Patient 0 for Germany was in Bayern...

I don’t think I’m general that Germans are as tactile either

Stella1know my DB was saying the same thing when I spoke to him last night - local frozen yoghurt/waffle place buzzing, loads of young people out and about by the river. schools are closed and non essential shops were going to close he said but then was surprised that the yoghurt place, opticians and other places are still going. NRW also.