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.

This explains very well why we cannot compare case numbers with other countries. We are finding asymptomatic cases due to the use of lateral flows.

We’ve had fairly flat hospitalisation for months now haven’t we?

If Germany has fast growth that needs to be slowed then they need more measures than they currently have

@delilahbucket

This explains very well why we cannot compare case numbers with other countries. We are finding asymptomatic cases due to the use of lateral flows.

Blimey this too

@Frazzled2207

199 deaths were reported today. I don’t think we’re ok at all. There’s just a collective decision not to do anything about it other than half heartedly offer boosters and hope for the best.

In some of the press conferences i watched last winter they were talking about reaching a point where people were prepared to accept the numbers of deaths for the right to their freedoms. I think we’re at that point.

Is it because the UK doesn’t seem to GAF and everyone is carrying on pretty much as if things were normal?

@NotJustACigar

I think so many unvaccinated people here have had it and developed natural immunity that it isn't having as big an effect on us. Either that or what's happening in Europe will soon happen to us - we've been behind them before in previous waves I think.

Yeah, I think this is a big part of it. Hybrid immunity seems to be the best immunity.

Regionally, vaccination rates in Germany aren’t as high as here. Saxony has an uptake of 55% and the infections there are the highest

All cause mortality and excess deaths should be the data the government is considering when weighing up options.
It doesn’t mean that they don’t care, that seems rather a facile point of view, but that they (hopefully) are starting to value lives lost to other causes as highly as those lost to (or with) COVID.

@delilahbucket

This explains very well why we cannot compare case numbers with other countries. We are finding asymptomatic cases due to the use of lateral flows.

This is so interesting. Of all the children I know who’ve had it in the past couple of months, 90% have been asymptomatic picked up by chance by lateral flow tests!

From an outside point of view (we are in France) the general feeling here is that what’s happening in the UK is mad.. no or little masks, no passports etc. Here it is still being taken quite seriously but the impression given is that the UK are very slack. I also think your hospitals are actually really struggling so I’m surprised to see a pp say otherwise. Attitude here is definitely more cautious. We have my FIL and his girlfriend here from the UK and i would consider them both high risk being nearly 70- they were making comments tonight at dinner about masks being ridiculous and how it’s all over the top! I was quite shocked. In contrast I am pregnant and when they said they wanted to come and visit us we were actually a bit hesitant as I really don’t want to catch covid in my 3rd trimester.. I’m double vaccinated but the message here is it’s not 100% zero risk even then, which seems to ring true based on high vaccine rates and still new cases. Xo

It just gets everywhere. Regions and countries that escaped earlier are getting it now.

But things are bad here, unless you are ok with 200 unavoidable deaths a day and a two year wait for a routine surgery?

@scaevola

It's dropping while cases are rising

Because of the week or so lag between symptomatc cases showing and thise people deteriorating enough to need admission. The current drop is reflecting the drop in cases a week ago. They will probably continue to drop for another few days.

The drop in admissions was slow to arrive after case numbers were dropping, and was a smaller proportion fall than the case number. That is not encouraging

The drop in cases from before was just a false drop due to no testing during half term etc.

@sjxoxo

From an outside point of view (we are in France) the general feeling here is that what’s happening in the UK is mad.. no or little masks, no passports etc. Here it is still being taken quite seriously but the impression given is that the UK are very slack. I also think your hospitals are actually really struggling so I’m surprised to see a pp say otherwise. Attitude here is definitely more cautious. We have my FIL and his girlfriend here from the UK and i would consider them both high risk being nearly 70- they were making comments tonight at dinner about masks being ridiculous and how it’s all over the top! I was quite shocked. In contrast I am pregnant and when they said they wanted to come and visit us we were actually a bit hesitant as I really don’t want to catch covid in my 3rd trimester.. I’m double vaccinated but the message here is it’s not 100% zero risk even then, which seems to ring true based on high vaccine rates and still new cases. Xo

I'm not saying our hospitals are doing well etc. However during our worst point of this pandemic we had over 40k in hospital. Currently it's just over 8k and dropping.

@Blinky21

But things are bad here, unless you are ok with 200 unavoidable deaths a day and a two year wait for a routine surgery?

All deaths due to diabetes and sepsis are preventable if we throw every resource we have at it. People don't moan about that though.

I honestly think between 100-200 deaths a nday is going to become the new norm. A good portion of those who die of covid would likely have died of fly if they had caught that too so I expect some excess deaths due to covid but a drop in flu deaths too.

Our hospitals are struggling, but the reason is mostly not Covid, it's a huge rise in other causes of hospitalisation, partly due to healthcare being cancelled / delayed or people being too fearful to go into hospital over the past 18 months. Please look at the chart in this BBC article comparing this month to January 21, it's quite stark.

Pretty much every European country has at some point been the most successful and the least successful at dealing with Covid.

Virus gonna virus

My hospital is struggling, has been all year - but not due to covid at all really. We've got 1 covid ward which ebbs and flows but the rest of the hospital is dealing with the fallout of the pandemic / lockdowns / waiting lists etc.

We all as individuals as well can be responsible you don’t have to wait for the government for everything?

We still wear masks at work . I still wear one when going to the shops . I will scale down christmas and I am certainly not interested in a huge crowded works Christmas party .

I am a bit fed up with people just ignoring personal responsibility tbh . Have people got no common sense ?

@delilahbucket people seem to ignore that.
We only picked up my ds case as on lft he wasn't rEally ill just a little blocked nose, my friends dd just tested positive this week on a lft , again only slight cold, but these are teenagers so finding due to testing for school/ college

All countries record deaths slightly different as well don't they ? I don't think we will ever know truly from anywhere

I’m on the RTO steering group at work and the Security head (huge global corporate) said last week that we do 14 times as many tests as Germany so that may factor into the numbers we take at face value.

It is going to get everywhere and it will ebb and flow continuously until it eventually settles as a background virus that people will die from now on.

200 deaths a day seems perfectly acceptable to me tbh out of a population of 67 million, what's that as a percentage? Miniscule. Those throwing their arms up in horror I bet you didn't give a single thought to the statistics of how anyone died on a daily basis before did you? Thought not.

One of the reasons for the sudden surge is that the requirement for kids to wear masks in schools was removed in October.

DH has family in Saxony and their next door neighbours, four generations of the same family, don’t believe in covid. That is not an uncommon view there, although there has been a recent increase in vaccine uptake there. But it is not a coincidence that the AFD just replaced the CDU as their local MP in the recent election.

So if Germany tested at the same rate as us, thus catching more asymptotic cases, their numbers would be astronomically high. So our figures look even better?