Covid, here’s how and why (also) Germany is staggering
The numbers that rise and that make anti Covid tracking difficult. The institutional tensions and the first protests. What happens in Germany. The insight of Mennitti from Berlin
It was early July, just three months ago, when Ramona Pop, green manager of the Berlin Economy Department, battled with the rest of the city government to dismantle the provisional Covid hospital, built in one of the fair's halls during the first pandemic wave. Supported by local business associations and traders and by opposition politicians from the CDU, the senator (as the Berlin councilors are called) argued that the structure, set up in record time thanks to the tenacity of a former Berlin firefighter, did not needed more: the numbers of hospitalizations could now be counted on the fingers of one hand and ordinary hospitals, which never ended up suffering even in the months of flooding, would have been able to manage patients. The risk of a second wave, not even talking about it. Rather, Pop argued, we need to regain possession of the spaces to host the 2021 fairs.
The temporary hospital has never seen a patient so far, because the ordinary ones have withstood the blow. Designed for less severe cases, it can accommodate up to 1000 beds. In May, when the first wave began to die out, it contained 88. In July, as the green senator struggled to return the salons to the trade fair, her colleague at Health, the socieldemocrat Dilek Kalayci, made equal and opposite efforts expand the capacity up to 500 beds, occupying additional spaces. Today, with the vehement arrival of the second wave, Berliners can breathe a sigh of relief that the Social Democratic senator won the tug-of-war.
Germany observes the data of the infections, and now even more those of the hospitalizations and intensive care units occupied, and discovers that it is no longer the happy island of March, nor even that of just two weeks ago. A sign that even the most robust German contact tracing system, which has been strengthened in recent weeks by the Bundeswehr military, is failing. Like in Berlin, where the administration has announced a change of strategy. They diplomatically called it "adaptation" to the new situation: in simple terms, since it is no longer possible to deal quickly with every case, the operators will focus only on those involving risk groups, such as the elderly, the homeless, guests of retirement homes and chronically ill. The others, in case of positivity, will no longer have to wait for the call from the health office for instructions, but go into isolation independently. And personally notify those with whom you have had contact in the previous days. A creative solution, Senator Kalayci called it.
Faced with a stressed-out society, evidently not prepared for the announced new autumn wave and now afraid of the ever more concrete prospect of a new lockdown, even the action of politics appears to be blunt. The government and the regions are struggling to find the lowest common denominator that had made it possible to effectively deal with the emergency in the spring. Each Land goes on its own, in the belief that localized measures can be more effective, but the lack of coordination makes the strategy chaotic and fragmented, sometimes contradictory (such as travel bans between regions) and often a victim of the ax of the courts: who in Berlin he appealed against the closure of bars and restaurants at 11pm and was granted the right to reopen by the judges. In Monaco, however, a ban on leaving home was introduced starting at 9 pm.
Thus the fact that, after an unsuccessful meeting with the presidents of the Länder, the Chancellor has nothing left but to appeal via podcast to the individual responsibility of citizens cannot be passed off as a success. It is the attempt to sensitize the Germans to resume those rigorous behaviors held in the spring, starting with the drastic reduction of personal contacts, which politics is obviously no longer able to impose.
But that's not enough anymore. Bild reveals that in today's meeting of the CDU that decided the postponement of the party congress, Angela Merkel used dramatic tones. "The situation is threatening" also with regard to intensive care, "the increase in infections must be stopped", "every day is important", are the quotation marks reported. A new summit is scheduled for next Wednesday with the regional presidents, which will take stock of the effects of the relatively mild measures taken so far. Merkel's famous prediction of 19,200 daily infections before Christmas appears to be too optimistic at present: as early as next week the threshold of 20,000 daily cases could be exceeded. Last Saturday the Koch Institut, the body that manages the pandemic emergency, had registered 14,714 new infections and reported 1,200 admissions to intensive care units in German hospitals. It is possible that Wednesday, in the face of probably disappointing data, the chancellor pushes for a further step towards more or less rigid forms of lockdown.
Another heated meeting with the presidents of the Länder is to be expected. And it will be necessary to see how the population will react, now split between a resigned majority willing to endure new limitations and an increasingly restless minority that challenges them, both in the name of the economic emergency and of denial theories. On Sunday in Berlin the umpteenth protest demonstration against the anti-Covid measures ended between violent acts and arrests. Last week, self-employed artists from the artistic world took to the streets, excluded from the economic aid allocated by the government (which covered current costs for staff or rent of premises, but many self-employed artists do not have this type of expense and instead suffer a collapse of income). For days, the police have been investigating a series of acts of vandalism against works of art or archeology in the area of the museum island, the museum area of the capital: masterpieces and sculptures inside and outside the museums damaged or smeared by strangers. Actions by denier and anti-Semitic groups are suspected, which in the past weeks had accused the management of museums of hosting Satanist works and of being central to no better defined coronavirus criminals. On Saturday night, unknown persons threw fire bottles at the facade of the Koch Institut headquarters.
In short, the situation is complex, and it is difficult to hold together a large society with jagged interests. Law enforcement agencies indicate a worrying increase in aggressive and violent reactions towards policemen who try to enforce the obligation of masks. Over the weekend, in the city of Berlin alone, the thousand policemen on duty raised 300 fines for violating anti-Covid rules, most of which occurred in the evening hours. Several private parties were dissolved: one, in the Mitte district, was a fetish-party with over 500 people.
Meanwhile, the virus hits the symbols of politics. Health Minister Jens Spahn is in isolation, albeit with weak symptoms, a bit like having the general wounded in a battle. In a video published last Sunday by the websites of the main newspapers, Spahn warned his fellow citizens not to heed those who minimized the risks of Covid.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/covid-ecco-come-e-perche-anche-la-germania-barcolla/ on Mon, 26 Oct 2020 15:10:15 +0000.