Over the past week, I've seen a variety of German stories reported in the US press, which were basically incorrect, or just plain 'wrong'.....so this is for the record:
1. Germans are mass-testing everyone.
NO. They've never mass-tested and German doctors would tell you it's a waste of time and effort.
First, you go and call your doctor to suggest you have symptoms. He'll tell you...DON'T show up at the office or clinic. He'll then ask around ten questions. Depending on how you answer.....you get tested (with a script sent to a county office) or he tells you it's plain flu.
You show up at the county office.....knocking on the door, and someone comes out to swab you. The charge goes to your health insurance that the doctor has a record of (figure a value around 200 to 250 dollars). Twenty-four hours later, a result.
If you have the virus, there are two routes: stay-at-home and endure.....or you go to a hospital unit. Again, your doctor will assess your records and see if you have a secondary condition which bumps you up to the hospital.
2. The rate is low for the German rate of infection.
Well....compared to Italy, France and Spain....this is true. However, three German states (Bavaria, NRW, and Baden-Wurttemberg carry the bulk of the infections....near 80-percent). The five eastern states of the country marginally have any real infections or death counts. Why? Unknown.....people ask about this but no real answers.
3. The infections came from the Chinese visitors.
Only marginally true. In the very beginning.....that was true with the first case.
After that....it came mostly from a big ski-weekend in Austria where contaminated Germans returned and passed it onto others. Toss in the Fasching celebration in March, and that helped to bump the numbers way up where Germans infected themselves.
4. Lots of Germans have died.
No, it's roughly 4,000 at this point. The bulk of these....probably near 90-percent, are people over the age of 65. That's the same results as you see in Italy.
5. Lots of German older patients used ventilators.
No. If you go to the Health Minister, he says that the bulk were put into the hospital quickly and early....on regular oxygen, and the vast majority did NOT require the ventilator. At some point, they even took in French and Italian patients....because there simply weren't that many Germans requiring the ventilators.
6. Merkel was in charge of the effort.
No. The Health Minister (Spahn) was the chief guy you saw nightly. There's at least seven more political folks, who you saw more, and performed more actions....than Chancellor Merkel.
7. The German federal government out of Berlin controlled everything.
NO. The sixteen states went to various programs and bans....each varying a bit. If you were looking for one central program, one central authority.....this was NOT the case.
8. Germans easily bought into isolation and 'distancing'.
To some minor degree, yes. Cops will tell you that they've issued tens of thousands of warnings, and the public stamina to obey has waned in the past two weeks with warm weather arriving.
9. Short-work payments by the government (roughly 65-percent of your paycheck) is taking care of the bulk of German workers.
Well, it helps but if this were to go for three months? No. A lot of people would have problems with their bills. Presently, the small business folks are the ones suffering a good bit. If the furlough and shut-down were to go on for 100 days? A fair number of small business operations would not be able to come back.
10. Food shortages did not occur.
Presently, the system is working. There was a shortage of farm-workers. These were the people from Romania who would typically arrive at the end of March, and be in Germany for two to three months. With the border-crossing issues....they spent two weeks working on a plan to airlift the workers (minimum of 25,000) to Germany. If they had not worked this out....shortages of certain vegetables would have occurred.
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