Friday, January 15, 2021

Germany and Covid-19: 15 Jan 2021

1.  The push toward extreme lockdown?  Based on various news accounts.....it leads back to Berlin leadership now being extremely fearful of the new UK Covid variant.  Their belief is that it's easier to pass around, and that numbers (infections and deaths)....would go up.  

When this extreme lockdown would start?  Unknown.  The current program was to run to the end of January.  Some chatter (various news sites) say that a Chancellor/Premier President meeting will occur ahead of the 25th (that was the anticipated next meeting date).  All of this would suggest the middle of next week being this major meeting, and the extreme lockdown would start sooner....instead of later.

2.  Thuringia state election which was slated for April?  Now pushed to September....same date as the national election vote.  

The Baden-Wurttemberg and Rhineland Pfalz state elections for mid-March?  Well....the story goes that both want to keep them on the calendar.  No change.  If they go to an extreme shutdown situation?  I would expect something to shift their dates to September as well.

Remaining two state elections for 2021?  Berlin-City and Mecklenburg?  They were shifted to the federal election date in September.  

This election day....26 September....is now being referred to as a 'super-election' situation.  It is very rare that you have state elections occur on the same date as the federal election.  

Advantage or disadvantage?  I might go and suggest that both the CDU and SPD (the two normal big players) might get some positive spin on this.  A lot of people were expecting the combined SPD/CDU vote this time to be in the 45-to-49 percent range....lowest since WW II.  

3.  Troubles in sending out notices on vaccination appointments?  You would think that the sixteen states would all have the addresses set for all residents of their states.  Well....no.

Lower Saxony, for example, has some kind of state regulation that says you can't use private data (like your name and address) for this type of 'advertisement' from the state.

To get around this regulation?  They had to go over to DHL (the delivery service) and ask them for a listing of all folks in the state.  

4.  I noticed via several networks....apparently over this past week, they shut off access to Wuhan once again.  No entry, no exit. 

5.  Number of people infected....doubled in the past 49 days?  I saw that comment today via my local Wiesbaden news

It took 278 days to reach 500,000 Germans infected.  The number of days to go from 1-million to 1.5-million?  Just 25 days.  You can call it an mathematical factor or whatever.

6.  Number of deaths over a 24-hour period ending last night?  1,413 (highest of the past year).  Number of Germans infected over past week?  140k.  

Looking locally (my town of 293k)....the total infected since day one?  7,515.  

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