1. Is the virus in Germany in decline?
If you glean the data....the numbers say the decline is there and it'll be a very noticeable thing over the next week.
Just in the area where I live....500,000 in the metro Mainz-Wiesbaden area....we are barely at the 500 to 600 level on infections (half of them have concluded the infection) and stand at around a dozen deaths (most all near or above the age of seventy).
2. Are Germans getting fed-up with the ban business?
In simple terms, yes. Weather has turned great over the past ten days, and a majority of people are breaking the rules in various ways.
The preoccupation of the public networks (ARD and ZDF, along with the sub-networks) has reached a level where general public interest is in decline.
3. Are certain businesses set to reopen and go 'max-turbo'?
Restaurants, bars and cafes....yes. Hotels and the travel business....no, and you might be looking at serious damage done to their business model. Another loser is the kino (theater operations).
4. Did the border closures really screw the farming 'belt' of Germany?
Well.....Romanian farm-workers (in the tens of thousands) come each spring and play a key role. The border closures screwed that in a royal way. Flying in the workers? That added an extra cost. You will notice that at the groceries in May.
5. Did the crisis period change the political spectrum?
Merkel's crew (the CDU-CSU) and the coalition partner (SPD) went up around 12-to-15 points together. The Greens and AfD lost the same amount. All of the key figures in the cabinet have looked positive and it would be great if an election were held right now.
The chief guy who now looks like the insider to the Chancellor job? CSU's Bavarian Premier-President Soder.
6. Older generation harder hit?
At various of points, the data talks to German people over age 65 (especially over age 75) are the chief group affected (in terms of deaths).
7. German journalists hyped up on anti-Trump chatter during the crisis?
Some public TV folks are in that group and the Spiegel print-media crowd are all chatty over deaths in NY City. Most middle-class/working-class Germans aren't really into the chatter....they'd prefer to hear about their own situation, or their own recovery.
8. Did the ski resort in Austria and the regional Fasching events 'jump-start' the whole thing in Germany?
Presently, a real government investigation in Austria is going on and looks like some folks might be in serious trouble. Without those two events.....the rate of infection would be half or less of what you see today.
9. Is tourism in Germany crapped-out for all of 2020?
Yep. You won't see out-of-country folks flying in or staying at 4-star or 5-star hotels. That really suggests a long-term problem.
10. Did the Health Minister (Spahn, CDU) make a difference?
It's surprising how well he handled the pressure and kept showing up a dozen times a day for interviews and simply didn't screw up.
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