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.

@MrsLargeEmbodied

is this a competition?

are we hearing about Europe's rates to make us feel better about our own?

Exactly. It's winter, virus season. There are still millions of unvaccinated people across the world and fewer restrictions than at the height in 2020. Some European coutnries are seeing higher case rates and are taking measures to bring them down. The UK has high case rates and is perhaps doing less in terms of restrictions. Nobody is taking the perfect approach, but it's not a competition. Historically most pandemics last a couple of years. This may last longer.

@OrangeBlossomsinthesun I’m sure the full grade medical masks worn properly have an impact.

Bits of reworn cloth under the nose less so. If masks are the answer why are we seeing high cases in Germany? Why haven’t they had an impact in Scotland and Wales?

I’m not anti mask per se. I’d happily wear one if it was law. I wear one on public transport and in shops. They are not the solution though and we place so much weight on them being the be all and end all. And as a country we have received so much criticism for ditching them.

We removed all restrictions in July for a reason. Because a peak was inevitable after lockdown and we wanted this is in summer. It’s a risky strategy but I think it may have been the right one.

[quote Delatron]@OrangeBlossomsinthesun I’m sure the full grade medical masks worn properly have an impact.

Bits of reworn cloth under the nose less so. If masks are the answer why are we seeing high cases in Germany? Why haven’t they had an impact in Scotland and Wales?

I’m not anti mask per se. I’d happily wear one if it was law. I wear one on public transport and in shops. They are not the solution though and we place so much weight on them being the be all and end all. And as a country we have received so much criticism for ditching them.

We removed all restrictions in July for a reason. Because a peak was inevitable after lockdown and we wanted this is in summer. It’s a risky strategy but I think it may have been the right one.[/quote]
I did not say masks are "the answer". I said that a global study has shown they reduce incidence of Covid by 53%. This British obsession with po pooing masks, like if they don't immediately reduce covid to zero you might as well not bother at all is so infuriating. They have an effect as one of a raft of measures. That is what I am saying, in response to someone who said they have "zero impact". You don't want to waer one, fine, rock on. But stop pretending that they are useless when it has been demnstrated (and not just in this study mentioned) that they do have an effect.

I’m in Germany. Our incidence (which compares cases per 100k population, not just cases out of the blue) is lower than the UK’s right now. Germany - 340.7, UK - 395.4.

Granted, this will still go up for a couple of week but it was only in October, that the UK had national rates of 500+, with some regions staying at an incidence of 800/900 for weeks on end.

Germany goes into panic mode at the slightest upward trend they see. The UK couldn’t care less, you definitely didn’t hear alarming reports when areas of the UK were knee deep in Covid two months ago, but everyone seems to be rejoicing when another country reports ‘increase in cases’. Which is way lower than the UK’s ever was, to begin with.

Different strategies, one country has adopted a complacent strategy and pretends that Covid doesn’t exist, the other panics at the smallest change. I’m not saying either one is correct.

Germany has fully vaccinated 67.7% of its population. UK has fully vaccinated 68.6% of its population. The 80/90% figures some people are quoting are % out of the eligible population. You can’t compare apples with oranges.

Why are the cases rising? Masks (actual FFP2s, not cloth ‘coverings’) were removed in schools and some workplaces last month. Regular testing also stopped mid-October so less asymptomatic cases have been caught. Free testing has now returned although I don’t know anyone bothering regularly. Home tests are not valid anywhere, they have to be administered by a medical professional.

Boosters are being given, yes. There are a couple of regions with a particularly low uptake so the new measures are also being pushed as an encouragement for people to get their jabs before winter gets worse.

Our hospitals aren’t ‘full’. They’re fuller than we like them to be. This is a country whose health system didn’t collapse during the first waves. Non-essential operations have been done throughout the pandemic. Waiting lists haven’t increased. I could see my GP face-to-face throughout. I have friends who had elective aesthetic surgeries in February and March, through the semi-private/state system - so not fully private surgeons who aren’t taking Covid patients on.

There is a big difference in approaches and that’s mainly, Germany acts the minute cases start going up. The UK says ‘cases are rising, let’s be careful’. Then next week ‘cases keep rising, please be careful’. Then on the third week ‘we think this is something we could start worrying about’.

They've also just stopped unvaccinated people from using public transport

Love this. Source please? None of the 3 trains I took yesterday banned unvaccinated people from getting on them. I’ll make sure to ask my bus driver today if he wants to see my vaccine certificate

And at the end of the day, like another poster said, this is not a competition. Each country develops at a different rate, some are having peaks now, some had them 3-4 months ago, and none of us know when the next one will be. We can’t start priding ourselves each time the ‘competition country’ is doing worse than us.

The real question is, why aren't we (and our government), more bothered about our high rates and our 200+ daily deaths? Everything that I've read about the state of our health service seems to suggest that is is already overwhelmed (people dying in the back of ambulances etc), and we're not even in peak winter respiratory illness season yet. The way I read the response from Germany is that they're trying to get ahead cases, before there is a collapse of their health service, so they're bringing in measures before it gets worse. Whilst conversely our government are happy to just sit back and watch it happen. Why we can't at least bring in mandatory measures like mask wearing, that cause no economic harm whatsoever, makes no sense at all. There's just been a WHO report that mask wearing is the most effective measure in reducing transmission, yet the government are still so afraid of telling the public they need to wear one. I don't get it, why are they so in thrall to the crack pots who get het up about being "muzzled", when doing nothing will likely lead to the collapse of the NHS this winter? Unless they think noone will notice unless they actually need an ambulance for urgent care, that so as long as public perception isn't of an unsafe emergency health service it doesn't matter? Despite lots of shouting from doctors and NHS bosses, not many seem to be noticing what's happening now, so maybe they're right. These sort of news stories that make out it's so sad in Germany (and therefore worse than here) are very misleading and only contribute to the misunderstanding that we're doing fine. The story is entirely about the response, which says nothing about the actual level of infections and deaths. Just because our response has been to do nothing, doesn't mean it's all fine in the UK.

@MrsLargeEmbodied

i believe you have to pay for testing in germany

that would be off putting for a start.

They've reintroduced free testing this week!

DD at uni there and luckily they've carried on providing free testing for the students. Uni's attitude has been we carry on as normal, but masks, distancing/extra cleaning where possible. If there's one case and lectures go online.

Out and about, she says she hasn't seen any difference where she is as she's had to show a covid pass all the way along for access. She visited Berlin at the weekend, which has been more relaxed, but noticed some places where asking for proof of a recent LFT.

I would imagine the concern is how quickly numbers are rising and that they may continue to rise at that rate. Our rate has been high for ages with nearly 200 new deaths yesterday but we're just not bothered any more it seems. I wouldn't suggest for a minute that masks are the answer but they're such an easy thing to do - I'm still wearing mine in busy places anyway.

Germany goes into panic mode at the slightest upward trend they see. The UK couldn’t care less

It’s down to case rate increase

We have been holding steady for months, esp hospitalisation

It’s a key factor

Anywhere that is facing the rise like Austria and Germany will need to act faster and beyond measures they already have:

I said that a global study has shown they reduce incidence of Covid by 53%.

As in pp this has been debunked

@Orchid876 we have compulsory mask wearing in Scotland, including in schools. We have vaccine passports for nightclubs, theatres, concerts etc.
And we still have high case numbers and struggling hospitals with large queues of ambulances outside A&E.. The army had to come and help the ambulance service last month🤷🏼‍♀️

@CannotDrop

My view is it is because of previous low levels of infection. We’ve seen it in our school. Year 7 is Germany, low levels of Covid so far. Year 8 is England, there’s been cases every week which peaked last month - more than 50% have now had it.

This week there was an outbreak in both years. Suddenly half of year 7 are off with Covid, whereas only a couple in year 8.

Wish real life was actually this simple!

You can catch it again...

@EileenGC do you think the case rate might be even higher in Germany then ? if there hasn't been as much asymptomatic testing as we do in the UK ?
Also I get your point about the % of vaccinations, what age ranges have been offered the vaccine in Germany ? Here we are only just rolling out to the over 12's.

If it isn't a competition, will we stop comparing ourselves unfavourably when we're the ones looking terrible? Of course we won't.

Throughout the pandemic we were outraged that other countries were doing so much better, being way more sensible etc, we were the 'laughing stock' of Europe.

Then we had a storming vaccine programme, an unmitigated success story. At which point comparing countries became 'not a competition' and 'typical British arrogance' etc.

Which is it? Because it can't be both.

@MorrisZapp

If it isn't a competition, will we stop comparing ourselves unfavourably when we're the ones looking terrible? Of course we won't.

Throughout the pandemic we were outraged that other countries were doing so much better, being way more sensible etc, we were the 'laughing stock' of Europe.

Then we had a storming vaccine programme, an unmitigated success story. At which point comparing countries became 'not a competition' and 'typical British arrogance' etc.

Which is it? Because it can't be both.

Yep it’s very skewed

Masks obviously don't limit transmission entirely (or even close to entirely), but they don't cause anyone any harm, so why not continue with them as part of a suite of control measures? Who knows, cases could be even higher in Scotland without them. They do reduce transmission at least a bit, and as not a single business has closed down as a results of mask wearing, why not mandate them, at least for the winter. I'd rather we try and do something harmless like mask wearing to limit spread before it gets worse, rather than closing schools or businesses because we've got to the point that the NHS can't cope at all again. Weirdly though, the people who seem to be ardently anti-mask (or anti any restrictions at all) are usually the most vehemently anti-lockdown. Like if we all just chose to ignore Covid, everything would be fine.

@MorrisZapp , have you been comparing for the last 4 months? Because the UK’s numbers have been terrible.

Some of us don’t need the media to tell us about the rates in Europe. I keep an eye on it here: www.statista.com/statistics/1139048/coronavirus-case-rates-in-the-past-7-days-in-europe-by-country/

I have been checking the above for most of this year. At one point the U.K. was at the bottom (i.e. we had the lowest cases), then we moved up to the top in the summer and we have since steadily moved down to almost the middle.

@MarshaBradyo

I said that a global study has shown they reduce incidence of Covid by 53%.

As in pp this has been debunked

It was only published yesterday so how has it been debunked. Anyway it seems common sense to me that if you have a barrier in front of your nose and mouth it is harder for things to get out and in.

@BunsyGirl

Some of us don’t need the media to tell us about the rates in Europe. I keep an eye on it here: www.statista.com/statistics/1139048/coronavirus-case-rates-in-the-past-7-days-in-europe-by-country/

I have been checking the above for most of this year. At one point the U.K. was at the bottom (i.e. we had the lowest cases), then we moved up to the top in the summer and we have since steadily moved down to almost the middle.

I wonder what this would look like if we adjusted for testing rates

@Kikkomam

The Guardian had an article yesterday saying that masks reduce transmission of covid by 50%

Sadly this is not true although I wish it were. Its been debunked.

Yeah, it was a very misleading article.

The true number is very roughly around 10% with a big confidence interval.

It was only published yesterday so how has it been debunked.

I know probably fastest debunking we’ve had. There’s a thread on here explaining why somewhere

@MarshaBradyo

Germany goes into panic mode at the slightest upward trend they see. The UK couldn’t care less

It’s down to case rate increase

We have been holding steady for months, esp hospitalisation

It’s a key factor

Anywhere that is facing the rise like Austria and Germany will need to act faster and beyond measures they already have:

If you’d quoted my full sentence you’d have seen I obviously meant when the case rate was increasing. Of course you don’t do much when it’s holding steady (although one would argue why is holding steady at a very high level ever acceptable).

Did the UK act fast and beyond existing measures in July, when the case rate increased greatly? No, they carried on eliminating the few restrictions that were still in place.

That is what I said. Germany tries to get ahead of cases or waves. The UK reacts a couple of weeks later, when nothing can be done to stop it anymore.

I think a lot of it is due to how badly hit / poorly managed we were in the first and second waves! We had a lot more deaths than Germany. But this also means that a lot more people in the UK have had covid and recovered from it, which provides some immunity (against serious disease at least - you're unlikely to get it as badly the second time round, as it's not completely new to your body). Therefore overall our levels of immunity as a population are higher and we are further down the road to it being just another endemic seasonal disease than Germany are. But they will catch up eventually as there's no other option really (the ship has long since sailed on stamping it out by isolating cases, and vaccines can't suppress infections enough to achieve it that way).

And it’s been “kicking off” in Eastern Europe for a while. Unsurprisingly, there was then a significant rise in cases in Austria and now Germany….

France’s cases have doubled over the last couple of weeks so I would imagine they are next…

@BunsyGirl

Some of us don’t need the media to tell us about the rates in Europe. I keep an eye on it here: www.statista.com/statistics/1139048/coronavirus-case-rates-in-the-past-7-days-in-europe-by-country/

I have been checking the above for most of this year. At one point the U.K. was at the bottom (i.e. we had the lowest cases), then we moved up to the top in the summer and we have since steadily moved down to almost the middle.

Look at the number of tests the UK does compared to the rest of the world. Many of these are asymptomatic . That can explain a lot. If you don’t test everyone , you don’t have accurate figures.