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.

I mean are people in other countries like this? It's not a few people either, there are Instagram accounts vocally against the vaccine and declaring homeopathy works for cancer and people need a heavy metal detox with 30,000 followers

@Incognito22333

So is there a marked difference in vaccine uptake between former East German states and West Germany? There is more vaccine hesitancy in previous Soviet states? Less trust in government/modern medicine/US vaccines? If that is the case then it is a German specific issue just like we had vaccine uptake issues within BAME communities originally.

Exactly. Following the European trend - the further east you go, the less vaccinated people are.

I think Europe is now behind us, lockdowns/measures just delay the inevitable. We are living with high numbers and many caught it over milder months. I think our strategy to open up will end up being a good idea. In the end we all need to catch it, and will do multiple times throughout our lives. This has always been the case.

I really, really hope the UK’s current strategy pays off. But let’s not call anything a success just yet

I hope so too. I get it’s early days so I still feel nervy not certain.

Austria has gone into full lockdown and vaccination will be made compulsory.
news.sky.com/story/covid-19-austria-to-enter-full-national-lockdown-amid-record-case-surge-as-fourth-wave-sweeps-europe-12472233

@frumpety

From a behavioural perspective not vaccinating the youngsters actually incentivises their parents and grandparents to get their boosters asap which protects the health service. So I believe the English government has delayed deliberately

Thats an interesting point.

Indeed. I've paid for a flu vaccine every year since DC1 was born in an effort to protect her from catching it. I'll probably continue to do so until my youngest is five at least. I'd never had one before pregnancy.

The drive to protect kids is a powerful motivator.

@NotMyCat

I mean are people in other countries like this? It's not a few people either, there are Instagram accounts vocally against the vaccine and declaring homeopathy works for cancer and people need a heavy metal detox with 30,000 followers

They absolutely are like it in other countries in Europe, yes!

Our excess deaths from other causes last week were equal to the deaths from covid. Our health care system isn’t coping there are large and increasing amounts of people in hospital with covid and enormous waiting lists. Ignoring a problem isn’t the same as a problem not existing. Perhaps they don’t want all the excess deaths in Germany?
Regarding vaccination it’s not only the percentage of coverage but the demographic you need to look at.

CBroads

" Europe couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery, never mind a vaccination programme."

British (English) exceptionalism at it's best here.

Broadly, yes (re greater vaccine hesitancy in the former Eastern states). There are a number of reasons for this - it's definitely partly a reluctance to go back to what some read as the bad old days of the govt telling you what to do (and vaccinations for quite a number of diseases were compulsory in E Germany), but there's also a sizeable contingent of crossover with neo-right-wing/anti-mainstream conspiracy theory believers. Tbf there is also a substantial minority of anti-vaxxers in the south (Steiner adherents/conventional medicine sceptics/similar reasons to the east) which has meant very high rates of Covid in some communities there.

its

www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/storm-clouds-gather-central-europe-fourth-wave-covid-pushes/

NHS stress
When Boris Johnson talked of storm clouds gathering over continental Europe last week he implied the UK could also be next. But most experts think this unlikely.

Cases have been high here since the summer, with more than 14,000 Covid deaths recorded since Freedom Day on July 19. Hospital admissions, which have fluctuated at between 700 and 1,000 a day for nearly four months now, are also now starting to trend down as booster vaccines take effect.

Paul Hunter, professor in medicine at the University of East Anglia, believes that continental Europe is now behind the UK.

“The UK is now in a better position in terms of immunity than most of Europe because we’ve had a lot of infections and we’re now rolling out the booster jab,” he said.

Restrictions in the form of vaccine passports and mask mandates are in place again in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, but England remains restriction free.

Most experts think this is only likely to change if a new variant of Covid or an epidemic of flu were to suddenly start to overwhelm hospitals.

Asked if he could foresee a situation in which the NHS became overwhelmed, Alastair McLellan, editor of the Health Service Journal, told The Telegraph: “We don't live in a world where things are okay [in the NHS] and then there's a crunch. We live in the crunch. We already have [ambulance] waiting times of nearly an hour for stroke and heart attack. The crunch has become normalised”.

@HarrietPierce

CBroads

" Europe couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery, never mind a vaccination programme."

British (English) exceptionalism at it's best here.

..and missing the point that it was never “Europe’s” job to organize a vaccination programme…

@Howshouldibehave

I think our hospitals are pretty full as well…

Indeed

@IndigoC

Maybe they just care more about the 200ish people dying a die than the U.K. seems to.

Yep

@AlecTrevelyan006

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

Virus gonna virus

I love this. The best post on this discussion by a million miles.

Virus gonna virus is my new catchphrase.

Interesting re Austria but also Feb for vaccination part which seems quite far off re timing

Re hospitals what proportion is Covid related here? Someone linked it and it looked low will see if I can find it

We have to remember we also predicted that when we removed restrictions our cases could well get to 100,000 and that was expected. They’ve got to about half that. And even then everyone was calling for measures to be reintroduced. I guess as they didn’t agree with/understand our long term strategy.

Agree the communication around it hasn’t been great. I think because it’s probably a bit unacceptable to say ‘we’ve tried measures for 18 months, they merely delay the inevitable. We need to get on with life now’.
Vaccinations and boosters are key not half hearted mitigations that do little. As we are seeing in Europe. You can’t keep these mitigations forever.

@leotardrock

Because our Govt are ignoring it and pretending it's gone away! Our unlocking was 'irreversible' if you remember, they are not going to increase restrictions no matter how bad it gets!

Letting 1000 plus people per week die from it is acceptable to the Govt and the British public - Germany not so much!

I think this is to the point. The question to be asked really is not why Germany etc is kicking off but why the UK isn’t

@HarrietPierce

CBroads

" Europe couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery, never mind a vaccination programme."

British (English) exceptionalism at it's best here.

Hilarious! How do you explain Spain having vaccinated 79% with 2 doses and 80.5 % with one dose?

MyrtlethePurpleTurtle

" The question to be asked really is not why Germany etc is kicking off but why the UK isn’t "

This

@maddy68

Because they don't want further deaths unlike Boris who doesn't seem to give a shit

And they aren't "kicking off" they are introducing measures to keep people safer.

It's only things like covid passports etc which most support in these countries.

It's the sensible measures that have prevented the levels that the UK is seeing currently

It was widely reported that Germany's testing was only a quarter of that in the UK over the past few months and experts are now saying that true infection rates in Germany are up to 3 times higher than what's being reported. If both of these are correct then Germany has had similar rates to the UK for months and these have now risen exponentially.

Are you sure hospitals here aren't on the brink. One of my kids and partner working in hospitals and that isn't what I'm hearing.

@HarrietPierce

MyrtlethePurpleTurtle

" The question to be asked really is not why Germany etc is kicking off but why the UK isn’t "

This

Because we have steadier rates rather than fast increase.

Some PPs have said Scotland has vaccine passports for theatres etc.
This is not true.
I attended a capacity crowd indoor concert last night, and nobody checked vaccine status at any point. The e ticket asked patrons to download the Covid tracer app, but again, nobody checked. As many of the attendees were in their 80s, I suspect quite a few may have lacked the tech or knowledge to do so anyway.
I think Sturgeon has backtracked on passports, possibly due to IT failings.
We do still have masks for indoor events, but again nobody checks if non wearers are genuinely exempt.