Germany

Hertsseasider said:
What's going on ?
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They didn't have many cases over the summer, the vaccine take-up isn't great and now it's catching up with them.

This is why our government was willing to accept 50,000, even 100,000 cases per day over the summer, because it's a lot better to have them then than it is to have them now.

@BigHandsOliverKahn will no doubt be along soon to tell us that the Germans have got it right and we're the ones who've got it wrong.
 
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Lost Seasider said:
They didn't have many cases over the summer, the vaccine take-up isn't great and now it's catching up with them.

This is why our government was willing to accept 50,000, even 100,000 cases per day over the summer, because it's a lot better to have them then than it is to have them now.

@BigHandsOliverKahn will no doubt be along soon to tell us that the Germans have got it right and we're the ones who've got it wrong.
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For once it does seem like a sensible scientific approach by our advisers was followed here.
They did indeed say it was about removing a massive peak in the winter and despite a lot of moaning at the time, we cracked on with vaccinations and removed lockdown.

Politics aside and with hindsight- it’s the right move.
 
So if Germany follows this through and someone who doesn’t want the vaccine is forced to have it and dies then surely the government are murderers and should stand trial. It makes our governments no better than the loony leaders of the Middle East. The world has gone to shit!
Very dangerous ground and I can only see one outcome, mass rioting and division of the people. It won’t end well.
 
Lost Seasider said:
They didn't have many cases over the summer, the vaccine take-up isn't great and now it's catching up with them.
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I really don't understand why the BBC are saying This about vaccine uptake percentages, the uptake in the UKand in Germany is almost identical.

% for the UK total population is 69.0% for Germany it is 68.6%

The case rate average over 7 days is really high in Germany and spiking unbelievably at 57,000 which is 17% higher than the UK at 47,000. although Germany has a population 20% larger.

So the situation in both countries is incredibly similar right now. What is very different is we clearly here in Germany are about to have a ton of lifestyle restricting measures back in force. Which is an intensely depressing thought.
 
Lost Seasider said:
They didn't have many cases over the summer, the vaccine take-up isn't great and now it's catching up with them.

This is why our government was willing to accept 50,000, even 100,000 cases per day over the summer, because it's a lot better to have them then than it is to have them now.

@BigHandsOliverKahn will no doubt be along soon to tell us that the Germans have got it right and we're the ones who've got it wrong.
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The vaccine take up is almost exactly the same % as the UK so I'm not sure what point you're making with that?
 
I think they are seeing a massive number compared to where it's been; ours had been about 40,000/day for months.

I did read that they were shipping people across different states as they were running out of appropriate beds to treat them.

That might be because it's a low capacity, it might be because there are loads more people needing help than there are needs in places. I don't know.
 
To be fair their case rates are small in comparison to Eastern Europe. Nearly all of them are having the equivalent of the UK having between 100,000 and 200,000 cases a day. Then from this the equivalent of the UK having 1000-2000 deaths per day.

Scary stuff.
 
Dollar Thief said:
All depends on how seriously ill people are getting.

They could have 75,000 people a day getting infected and only 500 getting seriously ill.

Or

They could have 25,000 people a day getting infected and 2,500 getting seriously ill.

I see Czech Republic are registering over 20,000 infected people a day and their population is around 6 times smaller than UK.
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I think I read they had something like 340 deaths yesterday and that likely to rise as rates increase.
 
Matesrates said:
I think I read they had something like 340 deaths yesterday and that likely to rise as rates increase.
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It's been as high as 500 in the last week and often over 400. Assuming the case to death lag is about 2-3 weeks they were only having 30,000-40,000 cases back then. You would expect a daily death rate of about 700 per day very shortly.

Hopefully we won't follow suit as we have had a lot more people infected for months now and should have a lot more immunity.
 
TangerineMorph said:
It's been as high as 500 in the last week and often over 400. Assuming the case to death lag is about 2-3 weeks they were only having 30,000-40,000 cases back then. You would expect a daily death rate of about 700 per day very shortly.

Hopefully we won't follow suit as we have had a lot more people infected for months now and should have a lot more immunity.
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Fingers crossed
 
Foolweary said:
I really don't understand why the BBC are saying This about vaccine uptake percentages, the uptake in the UKand in Germany is almost identical.

% for the UK total population is 69.0% for Germany it is 68.6%

The case rate average over 7 days is really high in Germany and spiking unbelievably at 57,000 which is 17% higher than the UK at 47,000. although Germany has a population 20% larger.

So the situation in both countries is incredibly similar right now. What is very different is we clearly here in Germany are about to have a ton of lifestyle restricting measures back in force. Which is an intensely depressing thought.
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The problem in Germany is that people in the old East Germany have a much lower uptake in vaccination than in the old West so it looks like the old Cold War distrust of authority is still in the minds of people over 30 years after the Berlin Wall fell.

Where Germany are better off however is their decision to reject the Astra Zeneca jab, which a Swedish study has shown to protect for no longer than 4 or 5 months, in favour of MNRA vaccines which have shown to have longer lasting protection. Remember all the arguments on here about the issues with the AZ jab and people thinking it was the EU sabotaging UK interests? Well it turns out the AZ jab isn't as good as MRNA jabs.

So the two countries are probably facing different challenges right now. The UK might have more natural immunity at the moment given it let infections roam freely since the summer but it needs people to get boosted with an MNRA jab because the AZ one won't be doing much good anymore.
 
BigHandsOliverKahn said:
The problem in Germany is that people in the old East Germany have a much lower uptake in vaccination than in the old West so it looks like the old Cold War distrust of authority is still in the minds of people over 30 years after the Berlin Wall fell.

Where Germany are better off however is their decision to reject the Astra Zeneca jab, which a Swedish study has shown to protect for no longer than 4 or 5 months, in favour of MNRA vaccines which have shown to have longer lasting protection. Remember all the arguments on here about the issues with the AZ jab and people thinking it was the EU sabotaging UK interests? Well it turns out the AZ jab isn't as good as MRNA jabs.

So the two countries are probably facing different challenges right now. The UK might have more natural immunity at the moment given it let infections roam freely since the summer but it needs people to get boosted with an MNRA jab because the AZ one won't be doing much good anymore.
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That's why our booster jab isn't AZ so we will be way ahead of the rest of Europe.
 
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The vaccine uptake amongst people living in the South Tyrol of Italy that is very much German influenced and the German speakers in Switzerland also seems to be very low!
 
I don't think I can be alone in finding this sort of thread depressing.
It is not a competition, in reality what is bad for Germany is very likely to also be a bad thing for the UK. High case numbers in Germany = bad news for the whole of Europe.
I would also caution against people making predictions and statements about the relative merits of different strategies to tackle the virus taken in different countries. The trajectory and location of future spikes is unknown and congratulating ourselves on our approach now can look very stupid in hindsight. In truth, no-one can predict with any certainty where we will be in a few weeks, let alone a few months time. Case rates in the UK have started to rise again in the last few days from a high base and given the strain already on the NHS, it may not be too long before we unfortunately face restrictions on our liberty again, not dissimilar to those in err Germany. I don't think that any UK government would ever recommend compulsory vaccination but with around 30% of all hospitalised Covid cases being unvaccinated people it might not be too long until there are restrictions on what the unvaccinated can do.
 
ElBurroSinNombre said:
I don't think I can be alone in finding this sort of thread depressing.
It is not a competition, in reality what is bad for Germany is very likely to also be a bad thing for the UK. High case numbers in Germany = bad news for the whole of Europe.
I would also caution against people making predictions and statements about the relative merits of different strategies to tackle the virus taken in different countries. The trajectory and location of future spikes is unknown and congratulating ourselves on our approach now can look very stupid in hindsight. In truth, no-one can predict with any certainty where we will be in a few weeks, let alone a few months time. Case rates in the UK have started to rise again in the last few days from a high base and given the strain already on the NHS, it may not be too long before we unfortunately face restrictions on our liberty again, not dissimilar to those in err Germany. I don't think that any UK government would ever recommend compulsory vaccination but with around 30% of all hospitalised Covid cases being unvaccinated people it might not be too long until there are restrictions on what the unvaccinated can do.
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I agree. But you don't have to go that far back to see several pro European posters on here stating how our government had got it all wrong and other countries had got it right. I sincerely hope we've got this right. And I sincerely hope Germany and all the rest deal with this and we see lower infection rates soon.
Seeing the virus growing in Europe is not just bad news for them but bad news for the UK as well, and the rest of the planet.
You're dead right it isn't a competition, it's a global problem and always has been.
 
Also raises the question again of why the West is not investing more in getting the poor parts of the world such as the African nations vaccinated.

This omnicrom variant from Africa has 50 mutations, 32 of which are in the spike protein so is likely to have happened in someone very immunodeficienct and its poorer countries that have a higher rate of such people. In comparison, Delta only had a couple of mutations.

So unless the whole world gets protected, this thing will keep coming back around in waves.
 
BigHandsOliverKahn said:
Also raises the question again of why the West is not investing more in getting the poor parts of the world such as the African nations vaccinated.

This omnicrom variant from Africa has 50 mutations, 32 of which are in the spike protein so is likely to have happened in someone very immunodeficienct and its poorer countries that have a higher rate of such people. In comparison, Delta only had a couple of mutations.

So unless the whole world gets protected, this thing will keep coming back around in waves.
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They are- UK £120 million
Germany £175m
France £120
Eu £455m
All money donated to Covax program but its going to take time.
 
There are currently around 4800 COVID patients in German ICU’s and they are expecting that number to increase. The Germans are saying if their vaccine take up had been higher they would not be in this situation.
 
Lost Seasider said:
They didn't have many cases over the summer, the vaccine take-up isn't great and now it's catching up with them.

This is why our government was willing to accept 50,000, even 100,000 cases per day over the summer, because it's a lot better to have them then than it is to have them now.

@BigHandsOliverKahn will no doubt be along soon to tell us that the Germans have got it right and we're the ones who've got it wrong.
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Not often we agree however it's a policy that seemed eminently sensible to me and it seems to be working
 
Foolweary said:
So the situation in both countries is incredibly similar right now. What is very different is we clearly here in Germany are about to have a ton of lifestyle restricting measures back in force. Which is an intensely depressing thought.
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The difference is the rate of change, the UK has been at around the same number of cases since the summer, Germany in contrast has seen infections triple over the last month, also about four times as many cases are ending up in ICU in Germany compared to the UK (although this might be down to definitions and Germany doesn't publish overall numbers in hospital).

If Germany could hold infection rates at the current level without lockdown then the positions would be similar, but cases in Austria and the Netherlands are at about double again so that doesn't look likely, hence the measures now coming into force.
 
BigHandsOliverKahn said:
Where Germany are better off however is their decision to reject the Astra Zeneca jab, which a Swedish study has shown to protect for no longer than 4 or 5 months, in favour of MNRA vaccines which have shown to have longer lasting protection. Remember all the arguments on here about the issues with the AZ jab and people thinking it was the EU sabotaging UK interests? Well it turns out the AZ jab isn't as good as MRNA jabs.
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Source?
 
Lost Seasider said:
The difference is the rate of change, the UK has been at around the same number of cases since the summer, Germany in contrast has seen infections triple over the last month, also about four times as many cases are ending up in ICU in Germany compared to the UK (although this might be down to definitions and Germany doesn't publish overall numbers in hospital).

If Germany could hold infection rates at the current level without lockdown then the positions would be similar, but cases in Austria and the Netherlands are at about double again so that doesn't look likely, hence the measures now coming into force.
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Yes the spike in Germany has Been incredible, it is that spike that has levelled up the position between here and the UK. I had hoped we would follow the UK approach but unfortunately it looks like another winter of isolation,lock downs and working at home.
 
BigHandsOliverKahn said:
Link to study basically the key sentence is that they found no evidence of protection for the Astra Zeneca jab after 121 days. The mRNA ones fair much better. That's why even the UK is now no longer going along with the AZ jab.
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Okay, but that's not what the study says.

The study says "no protection against infection", but it also says "The effectiveness against severe illness seems to remain high through 9 months", which is very different from your claim of "no evidence of protection".

In fact the finding isn't that surprising, I think other studies have found that AZ generates a weaker antibody response but a stronger T-cell response, which in the longer run might be a good thing.


BigHandsOliverKahn said:
Remember all the arguments on here about the issues with the AZ jab and people thinking it was the EU sabotaging UK interests? Well it turns out the AZ jab isn't as good as MRNA jabs.
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Of course none of this was known at the time, so regardless of the pros and cons of each vaccine, the EU's behaviour at the time was entirely about damaging the UK's interests and nothing at all to do with public health.
 
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Lost Seasider said:
Okay, but that's not what the study says.

The study says "no protection against infection", but it also says "The effectiveness against severe illness seems to remain high through 9 months", which is very different from your claim of "no evidence of protection".

In fact the finding isn't that surprising, I think other studies have found that AZ generates a weaker antibody response but a stronger T-cell response, which in the longer run might be a good thing.




Of course none of this was known at the time, so regardless of the pros and cons of each vaccine, the EU's behaviour at the time was entirely about damaging the UK's interests and nothing at all to do with public health.
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You can nit pick words but the study is about the effectiveness against infection which plummets to zero for the AZ jab after 121 days. No wonder the EU sacked it off and now the UK is following the EU's lead.
 
BigHandsOliverKahn said:
You can nit pick words but the study is about the effectiveness against infection which plummets to zero for the AZ jab after 121 days. No wonder the EU sacked it off and now the UK is following the EU's lead.
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Based on a study that wouldn't be completed for at least another six months, what foresight!
 
RUSTY_2_STANDS said:
I agree. But you don't have to go that far back to see several pro European posters on here stating how our government had got it all wrong and other countries had got it right. I sincerely hope we've got this right. And I sincerely hope Germany and all the rest deal with this and we see lower infection rates soon.
Seeing the virus growing in Europe is not just bad news for them but bad news for the UK as well, and the rest of the planet.
You're dead right it isn't a competition, it's a global problem and always has been.
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Possibly the best Covid post we've had.
 
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