While nations all over the world are struggling to cope with panic, economic dislocation and restrictions wrought by COVID-19 pandemic, a different image has occurred in Germany.
Relatively, experts have scrambled to discover why the country has approximately 34,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases, the fifth most hit country in the world, yet, far lesser fatalities than other nations. Additionally, there have been more than170 recorded deaths due to COVID-19 in Germany.
That's only 0.5 percent of the total number of cases which is "higher than, for than the seasonal flu, yet radically lower than the soaring death toll of Italy of nearly 10 percent."
Essentially, no other major nation is coming close to Germany. Comparably, the United States has roughly 55,000 cases recorded, and roughly 1.4 percent of those 800 people as of this midweek, has died.
Scientific experts have several theories about the reasons Germany seems "to be such an outlier," yet they are watchful about holding up the nation as an instance during what is still possible to be the early phases of the pandemic.
Leibniz Institute for Prevention Research and Epidemiology professor Hajo Zeeb said he would be happy "if we can come back" in a couple of months, and still can talk about the right thing that Germany did. However, as of the moment, he added it is merely too early to say so. And, what's known is that this country, with a population of 82 million people, has "more cases per capita" recorded, compared to Iran, the US, and France.
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Contrary to countries such as the UK and Italy, and a greater part of the US, Germany has not shut down the everyday activities of people, even though it has prohibited gatherings in public or more than two people. Angela Merkel, the chancellor, tested negative for COVID-19 but she has gone through self-quarantine while waiting for results after one of her doctors tested got infected.
In addition, Germany is equipped better than most countries, in terms of health care. To date, it has 28,000 intensive care beds, which is substantially higher than the average in Europe. And, since Germany was not affected as early as Italy, or any other country for that matter, it took advantage of the time it has had for the preparation.
Nevertheless, a lot of experts perceive that the primary reason behind Germany's relatively low death toll is the big number the country has been able to administer.
Moreover, the German government has not come out official figures although it confirms having the capacity to conduct 160,000 tests each week.
Germany can also potentially help identify and slow the infection from spreading, and widespread tests are possible to identify more mild cases that remain unrecorded in other nations. This is according to the World Health Organization (WHO) health emergency director, Dr. Mike Ryan.
Tests Conducted in Mild and Asymptomatic Cases
One of the reasons reason experts is watchful about acclaiming Germany is that, a lot of its tests were administered on patients with mild cases, or those are asymptomatic. Many tests, according to experts, are conducted in those who may weaken in a coming couple of days, and even weeks.
According to Heidelberg Institute of Global Health Epidemiology and biostatistics professor, Sabine Gabrysch, this pandemic is still earlier than Italy's and South Korea's, adding, the severe cases and fatalities are still expected to rise in Germany in the next coming days until "we hopefully see" a control policy's impact is put in place.
One more probable factor why not a lot of people die of COVID-19 in Germany is that most of its cases have occurred in younger people. The median age of individuals infected, according to reports, is 47, while in Italy, the median age is 63.
Meaning, it seems that the high number of cases of Germany was initially powered by younger patients returning from their skiing holidays in Italy and Austria.
More so, the virus seems to have spread more widely as the said patients attended some carnival festivities held in various German cities and towns in February. And, contrary to Italy where some scientists think, the high number of youngsters living with elderly loved ones may have put those more susceptible to the virus at a higher risk.
