
Coronavirus: Germany infection rate rises as lockdown eases - vanilla-almond
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-52604676
======
fabian2k
This headline is a bit misleading. The R factor calculation in Germany by the
RKI is rather volatile. They explicitly stated in their report that this needs
to be monitored carefully, but that it is too early to make strong conclusions
from this data yet.

There were also 2-3 larger clusters discovered this week. Looking at the
nationwide numbers might be not as useful in this case. I'm not saying there
is no case for concern here, but right now these are very few data points on a
noisy curve, and a similar spike that turned out to be nothing happened a few
weeks ago. We really have to wait a few days to actually get some reliable
numbers.

~~~
nil-sec
In addition to this, the timing of these announcements in the last two weeks
were suspiciously close to lockdown relaxation dates. I would not be surprised
if the RKI is using these numbers as a tool to influence behaviour, even
though they know that there is a rather large error bar on the R factor. A
case in point is that before the lockdown restrictions were lifted the R
factor was around 0.9, but the RKI said the uncertainties are so high that we
cannot be certain it is even below 1 - and suggested delaying the opening.
Also, internally leaked government documents a few weeks ago showed that there
is an explicit strategy of the government, to generate fear in the population
in order to make people comply.

~~~
pintxo
Sources please. Or it did not happen:

> Also, internally leaked government documents a few weeks ago showed that
> there is an explicit strategy of the government, to generate fear in the
> population in order to make people comply.

~~~
camus42
Source I could find: [https://www.focus.de/politik/deutschland/aus-dem-
innenminist...](https://www.focus.de/politik/deutschland/aus-dem-
innenministerium-wie-sag-ichs-den-leuten-internes-papier-empfiehlt-den-
deutschen-angst-zu-machen_id_11851227.html) (includes the link to the
document).

~~~
pintxo
Interesting. Full document is also linked there:
[https://fragdenstaat.de/dokumente/4123-wie-wir-
covid-19-unte...](https://fragdenstaat.de/dokumente/4123-wie-wir-
covid-19-unter-kontrolle-bekommen/)

A quick scan seems to indicate a document meant to summarize the situation and
possible outcomes including options for actions.

They explicitly propose to be as transparent as possible and to openly discuss
the worst case scenario.

Without reading it in depth, this sounds like a sensible thing to write down
to prepare the relevant authorities for what's coming.

Relevant quote:

> Wir müssen wegkommen von einer Kommunikation, die auf die
> Fallsterblichkeitsrate zentriert ist. Bei einer prozentual unerheblich
> klingenden Fallsterblichkeitsrate, die vor allem die Älteren betrifft,
> denken sich viele dann unbewusst und uneingestanden: «Naja, so werden wir
> die Alten los, die unsere Wirtschaft nach unten ziehen, wir sind sowieso
> schon zu viele auf der Erde, und mit ein bisschen Glück erbe ich so schon
> ein bisschen früher»

Google Translate> We have to get away from communication centered on the case
mortality rate. With a case mortality rate that sounds insignificant in
percentage terms, and which affects the elderly in particular, many then think
subconsciously and admittedly: «Well, this is how we get rid of the elderly
who are pulling our economy down, we are already too many on earth anyway, and
with a bit of luck I inherit a little earlier »

And I would say this is quite spot on, for what we actually see on Twitter and
elsewhere...

------
moduspol
The infection rate is expected to rise as lockdowns are eased.

The question is if treatment capacity is overwhelmed.

~~~
oezi
If we are willing to accept 0.5% to 2% fatalities per infection, then we can
let infection rates rise.

Otherwise we should have tried to keep it in an acceptable very low level. I
personally find it astonishing that we are accepting >100 deaths per day.

~~~
moduspol
You won't believe how many fatalities we accept to drive cars!

~~~
alexilliamson
Not 100 per day?

~~~
paulgb
100 per day in the US alone in 2018.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in_U.S._by_year)

~~~
alexilliamson
The parent was talking about Germany. In the US we're currently at 2-3k
coronavirus deaths so still much larger than auto deaths.

~~~
paulgb
Ok, that's fair. I interpreted "we" from moduspol as "we as a society" but I
agree that the German numbers are more relevant here.

(Incidentally, using traffic death numbers as a baseline for a rate of
fatalities we should accept is bad anyway because those numbers are also
higher than we should tolerate, IMO.)

------
oezi
It is not the eased lockdown that is causing the rise, but the changed
behaviors of people. Many states were never really locked down (yes, shops and
schools were closed through the country. But companies could continue to work
in offices and factories).

People are now meeting face to face much more. This is causing the increase.

------
mrfusion
Are hospitals approaching capacity? That’s what we should be watching. This
thing can certainly go up and down week by week.

~~~
ivan_gammel
By now there’s a lot of empty beds and there’s more than sufficient capacity
in testing. It totally makes sense to reopen a bit and try to find sustainable
mode of quarantine.

~~~
mrfusion
I’d like to see a focused approach on protecting nursing homes and the
elderly. This is no way for the world to live. Please don’t try to normalize
this.

~~~
CydeWeys
A lot more people than you realize are willing to sacrifice them to get the
economy (and normal life) running again. They just don't talk about openly in
stark terms, for obvious reasons.

~~~
luckylion
Everybody is willing to do so, the difference is only when.

Some may think we should "sacrifice" them immediately, because living without
a mocha latte grande whatever just isn't okay, but if we'd face mass
starvation, I'm pretty sure that everybody would agree that we can't keep
going. Of course, that's unlikely, but let's not pretend that there's some
(sane) group of people out there, that actually say "under no circumstances
may any life be put in danger, ever".

~~~
apatters
It is simply incredible that you've reduced the argument for lifting lockdowns
to "getting a mocha latte grande whatever." I have never seen an argument made
in such bad faith before.

The US has just suffered its largest job losses in history. The people who
lost these jobs skew heavily toward lower income brackets and little or no
savings. The losses are still growing.

How can you say something like this with a straight face?

~~~
luckylion
> It is simply incredible that you've reduced the argument for lifting
> lockdowns to "getting a mocha latte grande whatever." I have never seen an
> argument made in such bad faith before.

It's meant to be the worst possible reason to end the lock down, with
"otherwise everybody dies" being the best possible reason. _Everybody_ falls
somewhere between these extremes. I just wanted to make clear that there is no
sane position that responds to the worst possible circumstances by saying
"lives must not be lost because of Covid-19, but I'm fine with them being lost
because of our reaction to Covid-19".

My personal opinion is somewhat close to yours, I believe. I'm aware that a
massively shrinking economy has severe real world consequences.

------
mrfusion
> The reproduction rate has risen to 1.1 - that means that ten people will
> pass the virus on to 11 more people. To keep the pandemic in check this
> level should be below one.

So Germany is going for total eradication of this virus? What makes them think
that’s possible.

~~~
m4rtink
New Zeland ?

~~~
mrfusion
Of course but that’s an island that has blocked off travel and stated that
they don’t want to reopen borders anytime soon.

They also have a lower population and density.

Is the same thing realistic for an industrialized country in the middle of
Europe?

~~~
m4rtink
We (the Czech Republic) and many neighboring countries did just that - the
borders have been closed for everyone since middle of March, with police and
army making sure this emergency meassure is observed. Only goods trains and
trucks are let through and even they are often checked for compliance (driver
has no fewer, etc.). Even cross border workers had to either stop commuting or
arrange temporary accomodation on the other side of the border.

So it is definitelly possible to "emullate an island" even in the middle of
Europe, and it seems to have worked for the countriws that did it - daily case
numbers are staying low, death toll is really low, so some of these
restrictions are slowly being rolled back, with cross border bis and train
lines resumming from 15th of May.

------
jaynetics
This is just one data point so far, but with the party atmosphere that I see
going on here at day and night, and school openings coming soon, I am pretty
convinced personally that this will escalate quickly.

I've rarely been more unhappy about the state of our politics. There was a lot
of public discussion about easing the lockdown and regions randomly made their
own decisions, affecting people's behavior even where no decision had been
made yet and forcing Merkels hand in the end, who was much more in favor of
playing it safe.

We were on course to get the level of containment and traceability that
several Asian countries have achieved, if we had only waited a little longer,
maybe just a few weeks.

To me it seems we might be letting the economy run itself into the ground. I
hope I am wrong.

------
overcast
I'm in continued amazement that people act like we've beaten this things, when
infection rates are shown leveling off. All that shows is that NOT opening,
and staying quarantined are effective.

~~~
CubsFan1060
And I'm in continued amazement that people don't seem to understand that
"beating it" was never the goal. It was to flatten the curve, not eliminate
it. Empty hospitals likely mean we went too far.

Staying quarantined until a vaccine is available is likely not a sustainable
plan.

~~~
umvi
> And I'm in continued amazement that people don't seem to understand that
> "beating it" was never the goal

I've argued with _many_ people who firmly believe it is worth burning the
economy to the ground in order to "save lives". Eventually, the argument
distills down to: "Do you care more about corporate profits and bankers and
billionaires OR peoples' _lives_?"

~~~
pinkfoot
Value of a Statistical Life

"VISCUSI: If you multiply the 1 million lives saved [Trump], and if the lives
are worth $10 million each [OHSA], the result is $10 trillion. … Ten trillion
dollars is half of the U.S. GDP, which means that in order to justify
completely opening businesses back up, the economy would need to lose half of
its value."

[1]
[https://www.npr.org/transcripts/835571843](https://www.npr.org/transcripts/835571843)

~~~
pacala
The 'economy' is not some abstract entity. It is us, the people, going about
our business every day. A hard lockdown is destroying all of the economy. No
accounting tricks can mask that. We should not play accounting tricks to begin
with. _If_ we want to stoop at the article's level, note that the numbers are
flawed, as they don't account for age distribution of the risk.

[https://twitter.com/AndyBiotech/status/1241741127205572609/p...](https://twitter.com/AndyBiotech/status/1241741127205572609/photo/1)

~~~
pinkfoot
Addressed in the article.

But feel free to add the 38% USG pensioner discount (or 100% if you care).

You'll still come out at a very, very large number.

------
nkkollaw
We don't know how many cases are out there. There is just not enough testing.

We can only count deaths, but even that is tricky since people that were given
30 days to live are being counted as COVID-19 victims if they were infected.

The only way to know what the impact of the virus is/has been, is to compare
with deaths from the previous years.

------
mrfusion
Notice that there are no articles about the state of Georgia being down
several weeks after opening up.

~~~
greedo
Couldn't be because of the incubation period, no? I think that trying to
determine how well a state is doing so shortly after re-opening is fraught due
to limits on testing etc. If death counts are dropping at the 6 week mark, I
think you could claim "success."

~~~
ls612
Incubation is median 5 days or so and Georgia opened up two weeks ago. I think
it’s fair to start looking at the results now.

------
roenxi
Viruses have little ability to influence their spread; they depend entirely on
human behaviours. It is physically possible to all-but eliminate the
coronavirus worldwide in ~3 weeks if everyone magically knew when they were
spreading the virus.

Reproductive numbers are important, but I'm not sure governments have really
stepped up to the plate to explain how the virus spreads and what people need
to do to stop spreading the thing. "Social Distance", "wash your hands" and
sometimes "wear a mask" really lacks lacks explanatory power.

Given the vast costs the world has put up with so far to slow the coronavirus
down, there is actually room in the conversation to have teams of people
travel around and conduct some sort of training session on how not to spread
this thing and have people actually act out simulations. There need to be
finer grained tools than mass lockdowns and alternatives to tracking everyone
with apps.

I've seen a lot of basic confusion on HN about whether masks even help. This
is pretty clear evidence of uncertainty in the broad community about how to
deal with respiratory viruses. I don't believe that is due to a lack of
research; engineers have had the practical tools to research droplets in
airflows work for more than a century now.

Even the fact that "SARS with a risk of asymptotic spread" didn't have world
leaders slamming borders closed in Jan/Feb hints at a possible general
misunderstanding of how virus spread works. There were other considerations at
the time, but in retrospect more general education on the subject would have
been well worth the time invested.

~~~
oezi
Absolutely correct. We need better understanding of how the virus spreads, but
this is not an engineering problem but an epidemiology question. Record every
infection contact and determine highest risk activities so these can be
reduced.

~~~
roenxi
Either or. I suspect the aeronautical engineers would be better people to ask
than epidemiologists if it turns out the virus is mainly transported through
the air. Turbulence and control thereof would be the most important factors.

But these are exactly the sorts of things that shouldn't still be open for
discussion after 4 months and global lockdowns. Even among the general public.

------
beager
I think a smart approach will be to deploy these “emergency brakes” as TFA
mentions, but preferably far before it seems necessary, because of the cryptic
transmission and long incubation period.

And a lot of comments here talk about restrictions deployed simply to avoid an
overwhelm of the healthcare system. While that’s important, the longer we can
prevent the disease running through the population, the lower we can make the
case severity and fatality rate due to advancements in treatment.

A lot of commentary on COVID-19 recently presumed that we can’t control
outcomes, only the rate of spread. That may be true at a point in time, but
the longer we hold out, the better the outcomes will be on the tail end with
advancements in treatment research.

------
anotheryou
And my work wants me back on site in an open office...

I calced a bit and saw about a 1% chance of getting infected within a month at
the office. Maybe acceptable for a month, not for a year (>10% risk than).

~~~
greedo
Yeah, that's my concern as well. We have the worst of both worlds in my
office; cubicles that don't restrict anything, and we're walled in with glass
walls (a NOC) that limits airflow. The cubicle pathways prevent us from
following social distancing, and there's over 30 of us in the NOC. Good times.
Hope I can continue to WFH forever.

------
thepangolino
How can infection rate already increase if lockdown measures only eased less
than a week ago and the incubation time is about a week?

~~~
flohofwoe
People are already infectious much earlier (2..3 days I think?).

Also people already started to take the restrictions less seriously quite a
bit earlier than the official relaxations. And the lockdown was never very
strict in Germany in the first place. Some types of businesses had to close,
but people could go outside "for no particular reasons", just keep a distance
to people not in your own household and if possible don't travel across
Germany.

And finally, AFAIK the RKI "infection rate computation" is based at least
partly on predictive models.

PS: The actual lockdown rules differed slightly across the German federal
states. I think at least Bavaria had stricter rules then what I described,
which makes sense because they've been hit harder.

~~~
luckylion
> Also people already started to take the restrictions less seriously quite a
> bit earlier than the official relaxations.

The regulations where eased on some issues, but stricter requirements were
introduced in other place, e.g. masks were made mandatory in public transport,
super markets in most (all?) states etc.

~~~
lbeltrame
Is distance between people enforced on public transport? Again, I'm trying to
compare measures from other countries to my own.

~~~
flohofwoe
You have to wear a simple mask now on public transport and when shopping. This
is in addition to keeping distance, but I don't know if it's actually enforced
on trains (in shops, yes). Typically there are warning signs with the rules at
the door (wear a mask, keep at least 1.5m distance).

~~~
lbeltrame
In my city public transportation has taken a big hit because with the rules in
place trains and buses can only carry 30% of the usual passenger load even
with full system capacity.

------
KCUOJJQJ
[https://www.statista.com/statistics/1100823/coronavirus-
case...](https://www.statista.com/statistics/1100823/coronavirus-cases-
development-germany/) Is it possible that the C virus is (almost) over but
there is a collective anxiety attack? And if this collective anxiety attack
existed, is it possible that people are harmed by it? Apparently A & E
departments in Germany have fewer patients with strokes and heart attacks:
[https://www.sr.de/sr/home/nachrichten/panorama/weniger_mensc...](https://www.sr.de/sr/home/nachrichten/panorama/weniger_menschen_in_notaufnahmen_schlaganfall_herzinfarkt_100.html)
(in German)

------
drran
Why not to relax restrictions for 2 days, then lockdown for 5 days, then
repeat, but test all with symptoms first?

~~~
kyriakos
5 days of lockdown won't be enough to keep for all people infected during the
first 2 days to show symptoms - this means they may make it back to the
society after the 5 days and spread the virus further.

~~~
drran
They will spread virus for 2 additional days instead of 7, so R0 will drop
massively.

Does anybody know an opensource epidemic simulator to test the idea?

