Why are things ' kicking off ' in Europe ?

[genuinequestion21]

Please excuse my ignorance. But why is Germany for example stressing so much about covid right now ?

I think we have more cases per 100 k than them and have been having high cases for months and we are still open and not ' that much ' talk about lockdown etc. It seems we are kind of just about ' OK '. Well at least we aren't going to plan B yet.

However in Germany there have been few cases and cases are now exploding and there's talk of lock downs etc.

Hospitals also seem to be full again. Whereas in the UK, they don't seem to be on the brink.

Why these differences ? Germany and UK have a very similar proportion of the population vaccinated. Is it because cases are seeming to go up very rapidly, whereas ours have been high but flat for ages ?

Why are their hospitals full again and ours are not ?

Please correct any factual information which is incorrect.

@Geamhradh oh sweetheart, that’s so funny, if only you knew

What concerns me is the number of critically ill/serious cases in Germany and the way those are rising, for all those who have said there have been no issues with healthcare during the pandemic over there, you might unfortunately be about to find out why the UK healthcare system struggled.

There are definitely issues. Covid patients were recently flown from Germany to Italy due to a lack of ICU beds. That is a healthcare system in crisis.

@Quartz2208

Yes it is interesting isnt it that Brazil (who by all accounts has been incredibly hard) even at its known peaks doesnt come close to our case rate. Which is why it is called confirmed cases.

All those charts do @PrincessNutNuts is basically show how difficult it is to compare countries because there is no like for like. DIfferent testing/reporting ways, different set ups (huge areas of Brazil for example probably were never tested) rendering data comparisions ineffective and pointless.

All each country can do I think is monitor and assess where it is - because that data one would hope can show trends. It can show where growth rates do out of control and measures can be brought in.

Whether you agree with our approach or not at the moment the UK is not at the stage other countries are

The Economist keeps a tally of estimated excess deaths during the covid pandemic. :

17.9 million globally.

www.economist.com/graphic-detail/coronavirus-excess-deaths-estimates

The U.K. compared with our most comparable European neighbours:

Compared with the EU as a whole:

A less Euro-centric view:

@CamQ

UK cases continue to oscillate around a fairly constant baseline. No underlining increase.

I'm finding the uK pattern really odd. That's not your usual Gompertz curve.

Anyone got any theories as to why? I'm pretty stumped