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!!

I’m in Germany, and restrictions didn’t start easing until the end of the first week in May (at the earliest: I had to look this up

I have a friend who is a teacher in Germany and she was back at work teaching face to face on 23 April. So the restrictions started easing well before May. Admittedly not normal groups and part-time (and that is still the case).

puffin that very much depends on which Land she is in.

Berlin is only now beginning to ease attendance back in - and we break up for the holidays in a couple of weeks.

I live in Germany and we're not back to "pre-Covid normal" but we're a good way along.

What enables this:
Most people are still social distancing from non-family
Masks mandatory in shops, taxis, public transport, stations

My hairdresser and my gym opened 3 weeks ago - I skipped for joy
Restaurants could then serve customers outdoors - some places have big gardens with distanced tables - and in some states can serve indoors too

School will be part-time until end June when they break up, but every form will have been rotated in by then.
Staff & pupils could choose whether to wear PPE

Childcare reopened this week and my neighbour says hers will be back to normal over the summer vacation.
Unless there is a 2nd wave, we expect / hope school to be ft after the vacation

Yes, the 16 German states have considerable autonomy about how they carry out general policy agreed with central government
This works, because a couple had very few cases, whereas some were much harder hit,
so they need different degrees of strictness

All states agreed with Merkel to have localised lockdowns of any institution / factory / town etc with > 50 new cases / 100,000 within a 7 day period

This enables 99% of the country to continue to relax measures and get as far back to normal as possible,
while a few very local outbreaks are contained with contact tracking & isolation

"they treated Covid-19 patients in the early stages rather than turning everyone away"

I don't think that's true... I think it's a myth tbh.
Meat-packing outbreak in Germany, 13/150 people were hospitalised, which seems similar to hospitalisation rate in UK, not very high, most isolating & recovering at home.

This says that treatment differences wasn't the reason, more that Germany tested a huge amount which meant they found & isolated the infectious early so c19 didn't spread to the vulnerable so easily.

The timing & strictness of their lockdown doesn't seem so different from UK (as described in that article, 22 March, mixing households description).

The early treatment in Germany is true

The RKI report around 18% of confirmed cases were hospitalised, but as Germany tested more, it picked up more of the milder cases

Healthcare has never been rationed in Germany - unlike with the NHS - and it wasn't rationed for COVID either

What I hear about treatment in the Uk is very different to what I hear in Germany:

Here, as soon as someone has been confirmed positive, they normally get a daily phonecall to check on symptoms and whether they have worsened.

Those that are no longer "mild" receive regular home visits from "Coronataxis" - health teams in full PPE spacesuits, who carry out tests for blood O2, BP, heart etc

Anyone found to have low blood O2 or breathing problems is admitted to hospital immediately

In contrast, in the UK before Easter at least:

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-52317781

"Some seriously-ill Covid-19 patients in London may not have been taken to hospital by ambulance because of a system temporarily used to assess people, a BBC investigation suggests.
....
Medical professionals use a scoring system, called 'NEWS2', as one way of identifying patients at risk of deteriorating, a check normally used for sepsis patients.

Under normal circumstances, ambulance teams would blue-light anyone with a score of five or above to hospital.

But on March 18, LAS workers were told to apply the NEWS2 check to suspected Covid patients -
and that many of those with a score up to seven could be "suitable for community care", even if there were issues with breathing rate, oxygen supply and consciousness.
.....
Over the Easter weekend, the LAS changed its guidance to say suspected coronavirus patients with a wider range of symptoms

and a much lower NEWS2 score of three to five should be taken to A&E for assessment.

I have a friend who is a teacher in Germany and she was back at work teaching face to face on 23 April.

Must have been for keyworker groups like in the U.K.

This newspaper article (in English) from the beginning of May gives the information about dates for loosening of restrictions:

www.general-anzeiger-bonn.de/ga-english/news/germany-nrw-corona-rules-what-is-allowed_aid-50423539

I should add that NRW was definitely in the first group of states to open schools as our Premier was very public about wanting to open everything up as quickly as possible.

The German healthcare system has massive spare capacity,
so unlike the UK did not need to discharge thousands of very elderly people from hospitals back to care homes

The mass testing, contact tracing and mandatory isolation also helped in reducing the spread of infection in Germany

This was enabled by:

• the network of 200+ laboratories across Germany, who were able to react immediately, whereas the 9 super-labs in the Uk have taken several weeks to get going properly

• the large number of public health and other staff in 401 German local authorities who could lead track and trace teams, as well as rapid recruitment and training of new staff.

Even 10 years ago, the Uk had 10,000 environmental health staff based at nearly 350 local council offices.
However, after transfering all this public health function to Public Health England,
this capability was savagely cut to only 226 staff operating out of 9 offices.

What is also interesting is that RKI reports fatality rate in German ICU is only 30%,
whereas I read it is about 50% in the UK ?

I'd expect that means patients are arriving in a much sicker condition, having deteriorated more

"could you go with someone from a different household and sit at separate tables 1.5 or 2 metres apart?"

Noone is stopping people talking to anyone at the next table, whether friends or strangers, so long as they keep 1.5 m apart

Tables are distanced so that chairs are at least 1.5m away from chairs at a neighbouring table
In my area at least, these are all outside atm, but I've read some are now indoors in other states / towns.

When you sit at a table, you have to fill in a form with name, address, phone, EM in case you or someone else is later found to be infected.

@BigChocFrenzy, that's intriguing about the critical care outcomes. Do you have a link to the report? I'll put it thru Google Translate if German language. Thanks.

The meat packing factory is pretty near where I am. The local reporting suggested it was barely-legal immigrants crammed into unsuitable housing and paid extremely low wages - I highly doubt they were going into hospital and being treated in the early stages! They were probably forced to come into work. This is quite different from the reality in most of Germany where labour laws are very good and people generally get signed off for a week just for a cold.

Yes, Bertie - it was mentioned upthread that it might have to do with the virus surviving better in the cold. It doesn't - it has to do with the appalling and illegal living and working conditions of those workers.
Thorough investigations are hopefully under way.