Life IS back to normal... not here but in Germany

[AvenueQ]

Last weekend my 77 year old mum in Germany travelled 400 miles by train to visit her 81 year old sister and her husband. Stayed at their house for four days. While there went to cafes, shops, church. Met my cousin and family. Went for dinner at my aunt's friend's house.
Same weekend my niece in Germany went for a sleepover at her friend's. Another adult friend in Germany went on a weekend break with his family, stayed in holiday apartment.
Meanwhile infection numbers still low.
This might all blow up - or give us lots of hope!!

**work

struggling
When I was unemployed I remained insured covered by the 'solidarity pot'. Children and married partners are covered within the 'family group' i. e. DD by my insurance until she is out of uni or turns 25, my DM and we children were covered by my DF contributions.
Pensioners and recievers of other income pay a percentage. Students not covered by their parents pay student rates (87.90 € a month with DAK f. ex.) in addition to their uni fees (uni fee for DD is 315 € per semester so would be manageble)
I have linked to an English wiki article because my English can't cope with the teminololgy.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_Germany

Are swimming pools open in Germany yet? Thinking of trying to book a break somewhere.

Not yet at least not here, only for professional lane swimmers but they are talking about June, which I suppose we are now in. The problem seems to be the changing areas. It might be different in hotels.

And YY German health insurance is very good. It's mandatory so everyone has it, pretty much. There are a few people who fall through the net. It's affordable at 15% of your wage of which half is paid by the employer. That's for all social contributions btw, unemployment, pension etc. If you are self employed you pay the whole 15% yourself with a minimum value of about €180 per month. Spouses and dependent children are covered by "family insurance". But they also have a nice system here where you an earn up to €450 a month no questions asked, if you are in receipt of anything like this, family insurance, unemployment benefit, maternity pay etc. Students and unemployed people are covered by the social fund. Pensioners get a cheap rate as you pay towards your pension health insurance when you work or in the first 3 years being a SAHM. Assuming you've had working years on Germany obv. It can be a bit more expensive to retire there as an outsider. If you have a high income you can have private insurance instead (the type I mentioned before is state controlled) which is cheaper and gets you slight perks like a nicer room in hospital or the head surgeon rather than the others, but it works differently and doesn't have to cover as many things I think.

It's not perfect, there are definite gaps in the system and places where it's inefficient but it's certainly acceptable and while I think the NHS is better (when properly funded) I am totally happy with how it works here. I feel like the problem with a system like this in the UK would be that it would get underfunded and the groups of people covered would dwindle and then it wouldn't be working as intended.

@AvenueQ, I too am German and know for a fact that things are not back to normal, far from it.

Many people wear masks when they mix with the public. Schools are open on a pt basis. They do social distancing at restaurants and in enclosed public spaces. Many people still work from home or go to the office on a reduced basis.

They have a much lower mortality rate due to a different, though not always better, health care system. They didn't shut down healthcare services to protect their facilities and staff, instead they treated Covid-19 patients in the early stages rather than turning everyone away, which seems to have been an effective strategy. They know that they can deal with an increase better than we can here in England.

My mum who is 72 tells me that there aren't really any clear policies and that many people don't really know what is and isn't allowed in the current phase of the pandemic.

Yes I agree with not really knowing what is allowed. It's a bit confusing.

Oh so another country isnt as clear as we ate just we bash our government like they are the worst out of all the countries in their handling of the matter when other countries are actually just in the same situation

Yes I agree with not really knowing what is allowed. It's a bit confusing.
Me too!! People here in Germany seem to be interpreting it in their own way, along a spectrum of super-cautious to back-to-normal. I’m aiming for the middle of the spectrum...

@cyclingmad the same situation except for our world-beating death rate.

"we bash our government like they are the worst out of all the countries in their handling of the matter"

That might be because our death stats are atrocious compared to Germany's?

UK population - 67 million, 40,000 deaths (or over 60K according to more reliable stats)

Germany population - 83 million, 8700 deaths.

Clearly Germany is doing some stuff right that the UK is doing very, very wrong.

Yes because all countries have recorded their deaths in the exact same way right...er no they haven't some countries didnt include care home deaths.

Plenty of people working in hospitals of those who have had people die have said the death certificate cites covid as the reason when it wasnt

So infact broke has the true numbers

Noone*

Can i please ask those who are living in countries where bars and restaurants are open with social distancing, can you only visit them with people from your household? Or could you go with someone from a different household and sit at separate tables 1.5 or 2 metres apart? {and have to talk loudly to each other)

@cyclingmad pretty sure Norway, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Portugal, Austria etc arent hiding a pile of 40,000 bodies under the bed. Face it, our government's handling of this pandemic is shocking.

Just fill the form out and ignore it.

Hopefully 'Nasty Patel' will want a holiday soon and she won't fancy 14 days in quarantine when she returns so they will invent a reason to change the rules again.

You really couldn't make up the incompetence of Johnson and his yes-men and yes-women!!!!!!

@RichardMarxisinnocent because we can see one other family, we can also visit a restaurant with one other family and sit together. But. When we went to eat with some friends last week, the maitre d’ asked us how many households we were, and said if we were more than two, he couldn’t have let us come in. And they took our contact details for tracing. So people from no more than two households can be together. It means my 3 close friends and I still can’t meet, which I think would be allowed now in England??

@DramaDromedory thank you. We can meet any friends and family, rather than just one family, but only outside and we have to stay 2 metres away and in a maximum group of 6. So if restaurants were open I could currently only go alone as I live alone and am not allowed indoors with someone from another household. I probably couldn't even sit at tables outside with someone as we would have to sit 2 metres apart.

@Richard it must be very lonely. I hope it eases up a bit soon, in a sensible way.

You really cant compare germany and the UK like for like. The way Germany handled Covid compared to the UK is completely different.
Likewise they still have measures in place, schooling is not normal, and introduced things such as making masks compulsory.
They also have a MUCH better testing and track and trace system, whereas the number of UK infections has always been assumed to be higher then the numbers due to the difficulties in accessing tests, whereas Germany's were more likely to represent actual number of infections, evidence of this is in the numbers.

Likewise Germany continued to track and trace when they opened things gradually whereas the UK dosent actually have a track and trace system set up and functioning yet!

As PP have said germany have a pop of nearly 20k more then the UK. And were reporting much lower (and probably much more accurate due to testing) R0 then the UK at point of relaxing, and had much lower new daily cases

Germany has a better setup in many ways:

• better funded healthcare
• earlier lockdown
• lower population density
• schools and other public buildings that are more spacious, so it's easier to maintain social distancing
• adequate public transport, in particular a bigger number of rolling stock (so less crowding on subways, commuter trains, buses, etc.)
• better protection for workers that encourages people who are unwell to take sick leave
• sickness not counting against attendance records in schools, which again encourages sick people to stay at home
• better hygiene in nurseries and primary schools - children have to wash their hands before and after school every meal and when they come in from outside, they have to wear slippers rather than outdoor shoes in the building and are encouraged to blow their nose into disposable tissues

Can someone explain to me why our hospitals are citing Covid-19 as cause of death when it wasn't - as seems to be inferred above?

@LittleFoxKit

But we have a Trace and Test system that is apparently 'world beating' according to our Government?!?!

Noextremes2017 - they aren't.

Hope that helps.

I have read the reverse, though, of people who died from Covid but it was not put on the death certificate.

This is why the UK's excess death figures are so appalling compared to Germany's.

If it was the case that lots of cases were being falsely claimed as Covid when they weren't, this would be obvious in the excess death figures. In fact, the opposite is true.

There is no way of fudging the excess death figures.

www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2020/may/29/excess-deaths-uk-has-one-highest-levels-europe

If you scroll down, you can compare countries.

Apparently everything normal in Switzerland too, but only Swiss nationals allowed in bars etc.

I think you mean residents. Loads of foreigners live in Switzerland.

Imagine Tina Turner being turned away from a restaurant....