Germany and Covid 19
Germany has had far better success so far in early identification, testing, tracking and treating patients with Covid 19 disease than Italy, France, Spain and the US; the result has been a low death rate despite a high infection rate. New York Times (4/5/20) https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/04/world/europe/germany-coronavirus-death-rate.html Like most nations, Germany has universal coverage. Like the US, Germany uses private insurance through employers.
Some of the features for Germany’s relative success were its rapid development and deployment of an effective test to ID Covid 19 cases. https://www.businessinsider.com/why-germany-has-a-low-covid-19-mortality-rate-2020-4 They were more than two months ahead of the US in testing. They had ample ICU beds, personal protective equipment and ventilators in stock. German Chancellor Angela Merkel led quickly in explaining the need for social distancing; she was quick, decisive, calm and clear, and most importantly her nation’s citizens trusted her. They had no financial barriers to and no limitations on access to testing. They identified the patients and took good care to monitor and keep their conditions under control to the maximum extent possible. They have not had to destroy their nation’s economy because they knew who was infected and were able to track, isolate and treat them. South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore did the same. None of us are out of the woods on this pandemic, but at least we are able to identify the better systems and the more effective leaders.
These are salient characteristics that we may want to build into the renewed US health system. These are important traits we might want to look for in our next President.
Prepared by: Lucien Wulsin
Dated: 4/6/20