Testing in Germany & France

[poshme]

According to the data we have a much higher rate of cases per 1000 people than Germany (or France)

But we are testing 8x as much as Germany , and significantly more than France, with our positivity rate at about 4%, Germany at about 20% and France at 7%.

Surely that shows how they have far more cases, but they're just not picking them up.

Why aren't other countries testing as much?

Sorry just realised that was in the Netherlands, not in the UK.

U.K. also doesn’t count lft if not reported so that is probably the same in all countries. I did one today and didn’t bother to report it ( negative).
U.K. had 1.6 million tests done yesterday alone ( not including all the unreported lfts which also must be a few hundred thousand.
Testing is something we do very well in the U.K. (too well arguably!)
Son came home with 2 free packs of lfts yesterday and I ordered another pack from the government website which will arrive tomorrow. It’s an amazing system. All free!

We have had LFTs from school, pharmacy and by post.
As I say I only reported once, the first time.

In Germany, there has been a big disconnect between the numbers officially testing positive for Covid and the numbers dying of/with Covid for the past three months. The death rate in the most recent wave is much higher than in UK despite the fact that positive tests are much lower. Figures available from the Robert Koch institute.

Given that the German health care system is massivly better resourced (though not necessarily more efficient) than the NHS, this must mean that
A. Recorded positive tests are much lower than the real number of positive cases.
B. Positive cases are much higher among more vulnerable demographics.

I have family in Croatia: in their region the local positivity rate is around 30%, sometimes more! They only count PCRs done in healthcare settings which are generally done to people with symptoms, only healthcare professionals have free routine tests (and not PcRs).

@poshme

Thanks that's interesting. I didn't know you had to pay for tests in Germany.

I know in the States the press Secretary laughed at someone who suggested free testing- there'd be outrage here if we had to pay for tests.

There's been a bit of back and forth on free tests actually (I'm based in Germany as well). It's a matter of conflicting policy objectives. Tests were free all through summer, then as we moved to a "3G" regime (geimpft/genesen/getested, or vaccinated/recovered/ tested) for many events they became payable in order to encourage people to just get vaxxed instead. Which may have backfired as it made the number of tests drop too much. So now there's been another U-turn and tests are free again. At the same time, admissions requirements have been tightened further to no longer let the unvaxxed test out of them, and in some cases (restaurants) to require testing of the double-vaccinated as well unless you're boostered or vaxxed recently. Although that last part's encountered some roadblocks in the courts in the past few days.... it's work in progress to say the very least...

That's interesting @cherin
I was just comparing Croatia to Scotland (where I am)

Croatia's population is slightly smaller and they look like they have half the number of daily cases we have at the moment.
But they have 5 times more people in hospital and daily deaths this week than Scotland.
Combination of having lot more cases out there and lower vaccination rates?

very very low vaccination uptake! And they’ve been fooled by an incredible low rate during spring and summer, despite clearly lots of tourism. So by November they started really seeing number spiking- and now are vaccinating any creature that comes in proximity of a hub (human or animal ;-) giving them carte Blanche to select the vaccine they prefer…but it’s fundamentally late. Most of the dying are elderly, but not only. And I have a relative who works in ICU, most are unvaccinated and anti vax who are trying to denying covid exist even when they’re really sick…

@EileenGC yes, cases have increased significantly in the U.K. in the past week but prior to that cases were similar to Germany but Germany has had a much higher death rate. This suggests to me that cases were actually much higher than reported (which is relevant for the OP’s query) or for some reason the vaccine coverage is lower. Either way, I think it’s something worth looking at as it helps us all to understand what’s going on with this awful virus. It’s not a competition as to who is doing the best.

@BunsyGirl I remember seeing explained on a previous thread that Germany and UK look like they have similar numbers vaccinated as % of population.
However the devil is in the detail.

Germany's 70% (or whatever) is spread equally through all the age groups whereas in UK the older age groups (over 60s) have a very high vaccination rate. And then UK has lower vaccination rates in younger age groups who are much less likely to die from covid.

So this difference in the numbers vaccinated in the older age groups will have a considerable impact on hospitalisation and deaths.

@BunsyGirl this was Germany’s first full Delta wave, which the UK has been riding for months. You can’t compare the death rate during the same time period of any two given countries, if their waves are not even similar.

I do believe there were more cases than reported during the last month, yes. Thankfully the numbers are going down again (for now).

What @ecceromanini says is also true. There are many over 60 anti-vaxers here, whereas almost everybody in that age bracket is vaccinated in the UK.

Same reason why schools here didn’t see massive outbreaks at the beginning of term - teenagers were fully vaccinated over summer, UK started later. Each group is slightly different.