COVID-19 Around the Globe: Observations April 2, 2020 GERMANY

Immunity Certificates

Germany’s Der Spiegel has reported that Germany will issue “immunity certificates” to those testing positive for Coronavirus antibodies.  Certificate holders, presumably free of the virus, can return to the work force and are not subject to social distancing. It turns out that this proposed program would apply to 100,000 subjects and the first results would not be available until the end of April. It is unclear whether the program has been approved.

On Trump’s handling of the crisis

DeutscheWelle, the government funded German international broadcaster, posted the following virulent anti-Trump opinion piece on its international news site:

In the United States, the administration first attempted to portray COVID-19 as a hoax (See Fact Check for rebuttal), and then tried to present it as something far less deadly than health officials had warned. Ultimately left with no other choice, US President Donald Trump was forced into action as the coronavirus began to quickly spread across the country. In doing so, he never missed the opportunity to make crystal clear that his top priority was the health of the US's economy and not its citizens. The country now has more infections than any other.

https://www.dw.com/en/opinion-from-us-to-china-lies-and-coronavirus-pandemic/a-52972440

Masks Don’t Help?

In its news broadcast  of April 1, a German government spokesman advised against the use of surgical masks by the population. He claimed they do not help against Coronavirus. The German government’s unambiguous stance is in contrast to the controversy on the subject of masks in the United States.

Why Germany has the lowest mortality rate

One school of thought is that Coronavirus was introduced into Germany and spread by predominantly young people returning from skiing in Italy and France or from reveling in Fasching in Cologne. We would need the age distributions of Coronavirus victims to test this proposition.

Merkel Seems to approve Tracing Aps for Smartphones

Germany has a long history of fear of government surveillance. Apparently eight European countries are cooperating on  developing a tracing app, which will automatically notify those who have had contact with an infected/exposed? person. From her shelter-in-place, Merkel spoke favorably of the concept.