Since the mystery about German numbers is unending ( it is confusing me, too ), I will try to give some answers, to the best of my knowledge .
There are a few very wrong bits of Information in that Article above .
Richard Pebody is not the Head of WHO .There is no Richard Pebody sitting on the Panel at WHO press briefings .
During the WHO press briefing on March 18th., Dr. Michael J. Ryan, Chief Executive of WHO Health emergency programme, asked about the huge discrepancy in deathrate between European countries said :"There are a number of factors explaining that, but certainly, one of them is testing . If you look at Germany[...]they have had a very agressive testing process[...]so the number of tests and the number of confirmed cases may be detecting more mild cases."
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wucieL5YxCs&t=1462s
Question at 23:10
Also, the first infected in German were NOT people coming back from Ski Trips in Italy or Austria . The first comfirmed infected in Germany was a person in Starnberg, Bavaria , at Jan 28th . He was an employee of the company Webasto, and the Story is he got infected attending a meeting in Germany with a colleague from China who, after having returned to China, has been tested positive . This was reported to Germany, so immediately, the people having had close contact to the chinese Webasto employee were "on the radar'" .
Ein Mann aus Landsberg in Bayern, der in Gauting bei Starnberg arbeitet, ist laut Gesundheitsministerium mit dem Coronavirus infiziert.
www.sueddeutsche.de
The day the infection ( 28th Jan ) was diagonsed , the man was quarantined in a hospital .Looking at various reports in the papers, it seems to be that in total, 4 Websato people had been infected . All those and their contacts had been traced, tested and diagonsed, and quarantined . One of those cases had infected his wife and 2 of his Kids...ofc, these have been quarantined, too . A total of 80 people have been isolated quickly because of their contact to the then infected, and Webasto shut down the facility where 1k people work a day after the first infection was diagnosed . Initially, they thought they would open up again after a few days...in the end, their shutdown lastet until Feb. 11th . 180 pepople had been tested ( contacttracing ) and it was thought that cluster was effectively shut down, the chain of infections broken ( ofc, there is not really a way to verify this... ) .
Die Mitarbeiter von Webasto dürfen ab heute wieder in der Zentrale in Stockdorf arbeiten. Alle Räume seien desinfiziert, die Infektionskette unterbrochen, teilte die Firma mit. Hier waren die ersten deutschen Coronavirus-Fälle entdeckt worden.
www.br.de
Afaik, there had been no new cases diagnosed and reported until Feb 26th, when a man in Heinsberg, North-Rhine-Westfalia was tested positive, with his wife also showing Symptoms . To decipher this story is a bit hard, so many mediareports on this, and some obviously not 100% correct . but this is what I consider what happened :
The county did shut down schools and kindergardens amongst other measures . Contacttracing and testing started immediately . By 2 days later, another 33 people had been tested positive in the county, which had been sent into home quarantine, while the first case and his wife were treated in a hospital . Patient 0 had not yet been identified . Contatcttracing had sent approx. 1.000 people in home quarantine in the county .
www.handelsblatt.com
Sadly, it seems Heinsberg is where things got a bit out of control in Germany . There were reports that, due to the huge numbe of people having been sent into home Quarantine, it was not possible anymore to control whether everyone actually adheres to the regulations . There also were reports were doctors, and in one case even a Hospital, did not follow the guidelines and recomendations of the RKI ( Robert - Koch - Institute ) .
About here is the point where it would take pages and pages to give an accurate account of how things evolved, so I will focus back on how the numbers in Germany are coming to be .
I have not found yet a really good resource on how many people exactly Germany tested early on . What I know is that random testing did not happen really at the beginning, and even people who had Symptoms similar to CoViD - 19 were not tested on a whim . The guidelines were and are pretty strict . Symptoms + contact to a confirmed or suspected case, Symptoms + having recently been to a risk area, and 2 other conditions result in immediate testing . But by now, there are drive through test stations in some heavily affected Areas .
In terms if numbers, I do recall that 3 weeks ago, there was a number of approx. 35k tested per week reported . By last week, our capacity has reached over 130k per week, and the head of RKI said in a press conference he assumes that we are actually testing to the max of capacity . A bit unsatisfying that he did not know for sure, but I guess there is no way really for him to know for sure . It has also been said that we can still ramp up testing capacity by tapping for instance into the resources of the veterinarian Sector .
Then, there is the Issue of reporting . The RKI only reports cases having been reported to them by communal and/or state health administration electronically, and are only updating once per day . It has been admitted last week that the manual work involved is timeconsuming much, and some heavily affected areas do not report to RKI promptly 'cos of that . So for those Areas, the numbers of their health administration are more accurate than RKIs numbers.
In tems of deaths reported, I am pretty sure ONLY people having died to CoViD -19 are reported ( as opposed to people dieing and having been infetced with SARS - CoV -2 ) . Afaik, dead people are not tested for the Virus . Now, some people may think this amounts to cheating, or lieing . But honestly, I do not think so . I just think there is a pretty strict protocol in place to get accurate numbers . The same goes for people reported as recovered . Pretty strict protocol, dont recall details exactly .
When it comes to the reponse in Germany in general : It would amount to an enormous task to even try and create a comprehensive timeline and source it, simlpy because a LOT of things have been done, measuers inroduced all over the country, varying sometimes from city to city, county to county, according to their specific Situation . Reports of schools, kindergardens, universities, cinemas, theaters closing down, companies large and small sending their entire workforce home ( and in some cases also selfisolation/quarantine ) on the suspicion of an infection, or suspicion of having had contact to an infected person ( say where a testresult was still pending ) are numerous . These things happened on local lvl acc. the specific situation, often ahead of State or Nationwide regulations being put in place .
Unfortunately, while I think the initial response was bang on, and I really have good confidence in politics ( I never thought I would say that in my lifetime XD ) as well as rki and healthcare in general , the carelessness of the general public by now at least partially rendered the initial, good response ineffective . That beast is spreading really fast here now, and I sadly really think stupid and careless people messed this up .
But then: 25k ICU Beds in the Country . Efforts to ramp the capacity up underway for quite some time . Testing going on uninterruptedly, and afaik in growing numbers . The Situation regarding PPE is getting better and better due to the export ban ( which has been partialy lifted by now again already ) . Officials not at all being shy of drastic measures ( like Head of State in Bavaria, Mr. Söder, saying yesterday that, if it shows that the public is NOT able to adhere to the measures implented at the moment, he will not hesitate to call a Statewide curfew . ) .
I know we still are about 1, 2 days to go before we will get hit . But, I really think a lot of things have been done, and are done, really well here . To the best of my knowledge, Germany is the only European country that does ALL the things the WHO asks for : Testing ( more and more ), contacttracing ( yes, even with the hugely growing numbers, efforts are still going on to do that, as much as possible ), quaranteening and isolating . Problems seem to have arisen out of the isolating and quaranteening having been done on a "at home" basis, I think the WHO meant centralized isolation and quaranteening as has been done in China .
I think I could write some more stuff, but I need to get ready for the day . Final thought : imho, it really and simply comes down to testing . From the very first case in country at Jan.28th, Germany was on the ball in terms of testing, contacttracing, surveillance . Due to this, I think we simply have a more accurate picture of what is going on in terms of total# of infected . I think if countries like Sweden, UK, the USA and others were anywhere close to %age of population tested as Germany...there would be outright panic all over in those countries . Imho, they still fly mostly blind .
All the best. Stay safe everyone .
edit: typos, formatting
Yes MAM!
