Sunday, August 30, 2020

Germany and Covid-19: 30 August 2020

1.  Berlin Covid-19 Demonstration.  What the police say (Focus covered a good bit of this).....around 38k people showed up and the majority conducted a peaceful protest. 

ARD (public TV) talked a bit about the escalation that occurred around the Reichstag building, and how right-wing crowds threatened things.  There's a fair amount of frustration with the politicians over the demonstration.

2.  Carnivals (the fest season would start 2.5 months)....seem to be mostly cancelled out.  N-TV did a decent report on this topic.  If you find any town still continuing with fest idea, there are likely severe limitations (limited number of participants) being considered. 

3.  German testing labs are at full-capacity now.  Increasing the capability?  There's a discussion going on (N-TV reports this).....that animal labs (being used by veterinarians) are possibly being discussed and could easily flip from animals only....to multi-use and for Covid-19 testing.

4.  I sat and watched a economics report on Frankfurt last night.  They figure that even though shops have been re-opened now for almost three months....the city of Frankfurt is missing around 200k shoppers per day.  Shop are just locals who don't have the cash flow to spend.  Some are tourist-type shoppers just visiting the city.

Various shops are giving up, and shutting down.  One lady in the video portion discussed her Frankfurt shoe shop of 21 years, and they were in the shut-down plan. 

One aspect not discussed?  All this missing sales activity....translates to missing tax revenue collection as well.  That means as long as the commerce isn't there.....the government will not be able to cover their current spending plan.  It might take a year for this to appear and be openly discussed....but it'll be a fairly dramatic moment. 


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