International COVID-19 Megathread

[urutzizu]

Labour have major reputational issues these days.

The UK polling was taken a week or more ago, certainly before the recent chaotic developments.

YouGov's latest polling has Johnson's net approval rating edging below Starmer's.

Yes, but it still has Boris at a net +22 % (57/35), while Starmer is at 40/17. That is not the kind of numbers that the Leader of the Government with arguably the worst response in Western Europe should be having (especially if one considers his pre-pandemic approval ratings). This not about me trying to construct some sort of "Corbyn would be 20 points ahead right now" argument . Rather I think there is a larger point to be had here about British People perhaps having different reactions to leadership and authority in times of crisis, than their Continental Counterparts.

[urutzizu]

With Germany today, now all Official Q1 (Jan-Mar) GDP numbers released:
UK: -2.0%
Germany: -2.2%
Italy: -4.7%
Spain: -5.2%
France: -5.8%

UK damage will probably be a bit higher because UK was hit later by Virus. Still trend clear, existing social inequalities (north-south) in Europe will get even worse. Not good for EU, if it does not agree to further integration. Tecne Poll in Italy shows 49% want to leave EU, basically reversing Brexit pro-EU consolidation on the Continent.

[urutzizu]

I think on this side of the Border the Border Closure was very much seen as necessary - Baden Württemberg was the state pushing hardest for the Border closures in the first place and generally the one's more sceptical about reopening - not because of Switzerland mainly, but because we border Grand Est which was the French epicenter. In Germany generally though, it was, not least due to the historical symbolism you mentioned, seen something that should go as soon as medically possible. Especially in Saarland there has been a lot of criticism against it.

I think I have now heard the phrase "The Virus does not care about national borders" more often than I can remember - it always seemed a little bit disingenuous tbh. Because of course it does - that is how this virus is pretty much exclusively transmitted from one country or region to another - by people travelling. It can't be the only measure, of course, but if you look at how during the first phase of the pandemic many Asian Countries prevented major outbreaks originating from China, when Europe could not, or if you look at the Countries generally that have been held up as better examples of fighting the pandemic: Australia, NZ, Denmark, Israel, Much of Eastern Europe - it tended to be those that, among other things, closed borders and quarantined arrivals fastest.

Ultimately I don't like the sight of Border Guards and fences in Europe either  - I hope we have a proper Schengen wide governance to avoid it next time. But until then nation states must do what the EU can not.

[urutzizu]

Here at least, China does seem to be winning the propaganda war.

Kantar/Pew poll for the Körber-Stiftung:

More Important for Germany:
Close relationship with USA: 37% (2019:50%)
Close relationship with China: 36% (2019:24%)
Both equally: 13% (2019:18%)

How has your Opinion regarding the following Countries changed since Coronavirus (Better/Worse/Same):
USA: (5%/73%/17%)
China: (25%/36%/32%)
EU: (33%/28%/24%)

Younger people considerably more pro-china than the old.

Should Germany onshore critical supply chains, even if it means higher costs:
Yes: 85%
No:11%

Was loaded a bit towards yes the way it was formulated in German.

Should Germany agree to Corona-Bonds:
Yes: 38%
No: 59%

https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/deutsche-finden-china-immer-besser-usa-schlechter-umfrage-a-823ff983-5426-42da-ab7f-3f3de985715c

[urutzizu]

When China was pushing the USA virus theory on Weibo, the Media and even Zhao Lijian for a few days back in early march, before they retreated because of the international pushback, the main foundation of it was the actually the allegation that the US Military used the Games to deploy the Virus in China. Basically the the American Athletes were almost laughably bad and were allegedly behaving suspiciously, so the speculation was that they were actually doing biowarfare while there. There was also ostensibly a correlation with Countries that are severely affected, also having quite a large number of participants. At the time the theory did not go very far, mostly due to the lack of any other corroboration, but the reports here and by the french athletes also about a Covid outbreak during the Games, has given it renewed focus in China. I think when the Chinese government does its internal investigation into the outbreak, they will publicize heavily the focus on this.

[urutzizu]

He backpedaled after the criticism, and now says he wants to keep minimum distance and mandatory face masks.

There is a point to his reasoning though - not just in Germany. The widely predicted "second waves" after reopening have, despite certain sensationalist anglophone media headlines claiming the opposite (and promptly disproven), not materialized anywhere to a significant degree really. Not NRW, not Denmark, not Florida. This doesn't mean it cannot happen of course, but it is a pretty obvious development that falls in the face of both the Authoritarians and the followers of Herd Immunity/the Swedish Approach (which rested on the central premise that Lockdowns don't work because the infection returns as soon as soon as you lift them; Turns out Denmark managed to reopen safely and will end up with paying virtually the same economic price as Sweden. But it will also pay much much smaller human one.)

[urutzizu]

R in Germany is now at 1.20 up from 1.04 yesterday, which is highest since April 12th. 7 Day R at 0.95. But R has had high fluctuations in the past, so it is hard to draw conclusions from it yet.



The darker the Green, the fewer infections over the last 7 days. Many areas have had none whatsover. Community spread seems to have been mostly contained, the sources of new infections are mostly clusters, a similar trend as in places like South Korea. Mostly centered around Schools, Churches, Restaurants/Shisha bars, Care Homes and Asylum Seeker accommodations. This makes it easier to track and trace infections. Almost all Workplaces are now reopened. The 5G/Bill Gates/Anti-Vaxx/insane people demonstrations have lost most of their steam, as the pace of relaxations being lifted by the politicians or by courts is increasing (In Berlin fines for people violating contact restrictions were declared invalid by the Courts, even through it now has a R of 1,41. There was a very large Rave gathering on the Water there yesterday in violation of the Rules).

It seems that, unlike in places like China/South Korea/NZ, the Approach is that it is essentially fine to allow the Virus to continue to slowly spread in the population as long as health care capacity is nowhere near threatened, instead of trying to eliminate it. Which is fine and realistic as we are a large central European country with a very resilient heath care system, but it will probably also prevent a complete return to normality until a vaccine is found.

[urutzizu]

Thread on how the Spanish Government artificially lowers it's death count through absurd reporting criteria.

https://mobile.twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1268450736398098433

[urutzizu]

As bad as UK/US/Brazil?

Is UK really comparable the other two? I mean I have a different perspective as a outsider, and I would say Boris handled it worst of any Country in western Europe (perhaps with Sweden), but it seemed to me that Boris was at the very least clear to the public that the Virus is a actual medical thing that exists with real consequences, even as he desperately dragged his heels on doing something, and the Government did eventually lock down, even if much too late.

[urutzizu]

Germany's Contact Tracing App starts today, officially called the "Corona-Warn-App".

I am not particularly optimistic about it though. First, what we have seen in other Countries that have rolled them out is not encouraging. Australia or France for instance (in the former case there is only literally one known case of it helping), and even in a Country like Singapore where the population might be expected to have a greater sense of social responsibility to use the App (and Government expected to be more competent) it has been a total failure. Add to that the fact that Germans are unmatched globally in our absolute paranoia about anything re personal data and you have zero chance of something like this working imo. It was partly the reason why Germany went for the decentralized model (meaning personal data is not stored on some central government server, as opposed to most others, but on the phones themselves) but just anecdotally I really doubt that that is a distinction most people here understand or make. You try and sell them anything even resembling something that might be understood as a location tracker; no chance.

The only Contact Tracing App that to my knowledge has worked in any meaningful way is the Alipay Health Code system in China. But ultimately that is a concept that is extremely invasive and would be unacceptable in any western society. Having a green health code (no contact to known cases) must be proven for essentially any movements in public places, Shops, malls, trains etc. and has expanded the authorities digital control over citizens even further than the already dystopian levels. That is a price most Chinese are willing to pay no questions asked to eradicate Covid-19 it seems, there has been little dissent against it.

Ultimately if the App fails, it won't be a very tragic thing. Germany's conventional Contact Tracing system is working relatively well, and seems to be able to keep up with most symptomatic cases. And if you are not trying to go for complete elimination, as imo the German Health Authorities are not, then that will do the job perfectly well.

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China has also seen a second outbreak in Beijing in what appears to apparently be a mutated strain of the Virus. There have been 79 new local cases since Thursday, all of which are linked to the huge Xinfadi wholesale market in the Sw district of Fengtai. Three Cases in Hebei and two in Liaoning and Sichuan province each have been linked to the cluster. The Virus was apparently found on a cutting board for salmon, possibly Imported. In any event the Beijing authorities are taking no chances and have imposed a total lockdown on 21 residential estates in Fengtai and the northern district of Haidian, which is also home to a big food market. Arrivals from Beijing must isolate in neighboring provinces. Mass Testing is underway. Lots of luck involved with finding it and acting so early, since this is a market visited by about 100000 people per week, and of course the Beijing Authorities handling contrasts very favourably with how a certain other Chinese city and in fact many other parts of the world reacted to outbreaks when in their infancy.

[urutzizu]

Laschet is now blaming the "Romanians and Bulgarians who brought the Virus with them" for the outbreak and says it has nothing to do with him reopening faster than other states.

What an Idiot. His approval is already sliding badly, and he is showing that his political Instincts are closer to Trump or Boris than Merkel. Her supporters are (by and large) supporting him in the CDU leadership race because of Ideological reasons, but personality wise Söder (and most of the other state premiers) have shown themselves in this Crisis to have much more of her humility and statesmanship that Laschet desperately lacks.

[urutzizu]

Faced with a projected 11% decline in GDP this year, and experiencing a second wave already anyway, Croatia has apparently just said fk it and lifted the travel restrictions and quarantine for American tourists, in violation of what was agreed at the EU level. This is why Europe cannot have nice things.

[urutzizu]

All Arrivals into Germany from so-called "high-risk areas" will face mandatory testing for Coronavirus, because of concerns about people not adhering to Quarantine regulations. Practically all non-EU countries are designated "high risk". Meaning our drunk tourists can continue coming back from Spain which is surging past 2k cases per day, with no screening whatsoever, but Turkey remains "high-risk" despite less than 1000 a day on a much larger population. No racism here, no sirree. 🙃
 

[urutzizu]

Interestingly, Hong Kong and the Mainland are both having the opposite epidemiological Argument in the Chinese context: Hong Kong went for a suppression strategy, figuring Elimination would be too costly and the legal mechanisms were not there, now with small clusters spreading into community transmission for a third wave and a huge hit to the economy, Hong Kong is questioning they should have gone for elimination like the Mainland. On the other hand, while of course debate on the Pandemic approach of the Government is highly restricted on the Mainland, in the light of new clusters appearing, first in Beijing, now Urumqi and Dalian, all appeared to seed from abroad, and the extremely severe and costly policies used to stamp them out, some parts of the scientific community and even the Leadership (to the point some newspaper editorials taking a relatively reflecive view) appear to be questioning whether they should have gone for a suppression strategy instead. Ultimately both are unlikely to change course though, Hong Kong not least because it can't: When food venues were closed down, people just gathered in the street and started eating there. Not just the legal deficiency, Hong Kong also lacks the societal compliance for a elimination strategy to work.

What's going on in North Rhine-Westphalia?

Nothing much... the new local hotspots seem to be in Bavaria now in the counties of Dingolfing-Landau in the southeast (they had a farm with nearly 200 infection among its employees) and Hof in the northeast of the state.

Personally I am less concerned about those large, but relatively isolated clusters, and more about what appears to be small, but sustained and growing community transmission in large areas of NRW (especially the Ruhr, places like Duisburg, Oberhausen, Mülheim an der Ruhr, Essen, Bochum und Hagen as well as the districts Mettmann und Solingen) in a way that we are not seeing in most other States (see also Coronavirus map here) These are mostly mid-sized industrial cities with similar sociological Issues as the UK has in it's hotspots like Oldham, Blackburn etc. Germany doesn't record ethnicity the way the UK does, it would seem like the Turkish community is particularly affected, the same way the Asian factor plays in those areas in the UK (though less severe). I would consider this the sort of environment for a second wave to start, more than farm or Tönnies-style outbreaks. These developments are not the fault of the State Government of course, but I think them happening while they are going full gung-ho on normality in Schools and Kitas and being very reluctant on local measures (the hurdles of which are already very high because of Court judgements), is not a particularly comforting development. 

[urutzizu]

New Community Transmission in New Zealand: four cases in a family which apparently had not travel contact abroad, which is why this is so worrying.

In China in multiple cases reimportation of the Virus had been linked to seafood imports, so it might be that or other imports. Crews of Cargo ships have been mentioned as concerns as well. As the Outbreaks in China show, you can sustain elimination and quash any outbreaks if you act fast and extreme enough. However it also kept much of the population monitoring of everyday activities and contacts in place after elimination, as well as certain social distance measures, preparing the Beijing authorities for what happened and vastly easing the process of eliminating the Xinfadi cluster in Beijing within days. New Zealand doesn't and cannot do that. So, like in it's first wave, must make up for it with severe social distancing measures. It is good that the entirety of Auckland is under restrictions, instead of what Daniel Andrews did of trying to just lock down a ever increasing plethora of local areas. However Level 4, not 3, is needed in my opinion, and mandatory face masks also, the reluctance to impose at first, Melbourne payed for very highly. I personally feel this won't be enough, and such measures are likely to come anyway but too late. But hope otherwise and either way an interesting Case study if any western country can sustain elimination.

[urutzizu]

Yeah, they will replace it with 14 days of quarantine again with the possibility of release after five days if you can show a negative pcr. The Idea of testing everybody sounds very nice in principle, and and there have been calls in a number of countries (such as UK or Italy) to follow Germany, but in practice there a big problems with it:

It has caused testing capacity to be overstreched (93% is used up in Berlin for instance), and it is risking test capacity in care and hospital settings. A major reason for this is that they are free, which seemingly has encouraged people to travel into high risk areas at tax payers expense, which has been very controversial in Germany. However it was probably necessary, because while you could probably force people flying to high risk areas to pay for it as part of the flight ticket or something, if you force people to pay, those entering by road, especially those visiting family in Romania/Balkans, which are the highest risk group, will avoid getting tested as enforcement is near to impossible there.
In addition it seems as if it is not as safe as made out to be, with Immediate Tests after arriving missing infections that happened within the few days before flying back, giving people a false sense of safety to return to work (whence why many employers including my own are banning people coming back from say Turkey from working until 14 Days have passed even if they have a negative test.).
In addition the enforcement even at airports has been mired with trouble with potentially infected returnees standing for hours next to each other in huge lines, even people who wanted to be tested on their own accord not being able to actually find the testing center, and those that didn't presumably just walking out of the Airport as there are basically no controls. Also lots of mixing between non-risk area travellors and risk area travellors, and people flying from risk areas in the middle east especially, who mainly transit in Istanbul, not getting tested as per a German-Turkish arrangement where those arriving from Turkey get tested already in Turkey, but nobody thought about transit passengers. So it's a shambles.

How the Quarantine is supposed to work and be enforced better, especially with those arriving from the Balkans, is completely unclear to me (just look the problems Austria is having), but whatever. Some politicans have called to just outright make it a offense to travel to high risk countries, and maybe that will work, idk. But honestly it is a completely useless discussion, and in my opinion a highly racist one as well, as long as 100km from where I live there is a Country recording 5000 Cases daily, and noone is even considering closing the Border to them or declaring any high risk areas there.

[urutzizu]

France has gotten that bad? Wow.

Well they are testing more. Unlike in many other Countries, as far as I understand until end of July you still needed a prescription to get tested, and now it is free of change for everybody, and as a consequence testing rates have gone up. But that is clearly not the only reason, the Virus is clearly spreading much faster. Apparently my timing was on point because Paris and Côte d’Azur have just been designated high-risk areas.

[urutzizu]

What discussion is racist in your opinion?
That some countries are designated high-risk areas and others are not?
Well, it seems logical that you would first designate those places high-risk areas from which the most cases are imported. (Btw I think that in March South Tyrol and Tyrol should have be designated high-risk much earlier, with mandatory quarantine for returnees. Would have saved us a lot of trouble. Just to bring a "classical tourism" example.)

In my opinion it does not make sense to do it that way. Because, then what happens is what you have now, where people arriving from Turkey/Balkans/everywhere else have to test, consequentially you find a ton of cases, including the asymptomatic, imported from those areas, while Tourists from France, Greece or other European Countries and until recently Spain, are not tested, and as such the only time they turn up in the statistics as imported cases is if they do a voluntary test after they get home (which only the kind do who are anyway very careful about the Virus on holiday), or have corona symptoms and then get tested and are positive and tell the Health Authority that they traveled to (X).
Therefore the statistics on imported Cases will always disfavor the countries that were "high-risk" from the start, and have always been so since mandatory testing was established. Even before that most imported cases were from those countries, yes, but also that was before the second waves in most European countries had really taken off. It doesn't make sense that people visiting their families, are that much more at risk then Partytourists from places like Spain, Croatia or Bulgaria, and it completely contradicts things we learned in the first wave about Ischgl vis a vis say Chinese students coming back from visiting their families for lunar new year or the Iranian diaspora.
Ultimately we will only know more about this when the RKI releases new numbers on imported cases, which include the mandatory testing of arrivals from Spain. But until then the focus on family travel, and the lax approach to tourism does not seem epidemiologically sensible to me and feels racially biased.  

[urutzizu]

New Community Transmission in New Zealand: four cases in a family which apparently had not travel contact abroad, which is why this is so worrying.

In China in multiple cases reimportation of the Virus had been linked to seafood imports, so it might be that or other imports. Crews of Cargo ships have been mentioned as concerns as well. As the Outbreaks in China show, you can sustain elimination and quash any outbreaks if you act fast and extreme enough. However it also kept much of the population monitoring of everyday activities and contacts in place after elimination, as well as certain social distance measures, preparing the Beijing authorities for what happened and vastly easing the process of eliminating the Xinfadi cluster in Beijing within days. New Zealand doesn't and cannot do that. So, like in it's first wave, must make up for it with severe social distancing measures. It is good that the entirety of Auckland is under restrictions, instead of what Daniel Andrews did of trying to just lock down a ever increasing plethora of local areas. However Level 4, not 3, is needed in my opinion, and mandatory face masks also, the reluctance to impose at first, Melbourne payed for very highly. I personally feel this won't be enough, and such measures are likely to come anyway but too late. But hope otherwise and either way an interesting Case study if any western country can sustain elimination.

New Zealand abandoning it's Stage 3 Lockdown, despite community transmission still continuing. This means, although they won't admit it, they are also de facto abandoning elimination. Western Countries cannot sustain elimination, the population don't have the guts to stick it, Government's don't have the tools to do it.

Ardern is a populist, essentially. And a masterful one at that, in a league with Modi only. The days of weak populists who put the interest of business and "the elites" first are over. Empirically speaking, people love lockdown, and a good populist is a strong leader, who'll do whatever it takes. One of the most isolated Islands, in the middle of the south pacific, 100 cases in the entire country, of which 99% were overseas travellers, and Ardern's response is to inflict a lockdown so harsh that 7% of GDP went up in flames. And she keeps that lockdown much longer than needed, just to drive every single case out. She makes total elimination her whole thing, then a few cases reappear, just as the Virus mortality has massively decreased and much of Europe has learned to live with the Virus. So she locks down the Capital again to drive out the Virus, and then is forced to end it after two weeks (?), and ends up right where she started. And now NZ will be doing what the rest of the World has been doing for months, wearing Masks, limiting mass gatherings and living with the Virus. The whole rollercoaster was epidemiologically unnecessary, economically insane, but the media and the people love it.

Modi's nationwide lockdown is the same. Both have mastered the Art of politics and understood that during the Pandemic, policy failure does not mean political failure and Modi and Ardern are more popular than ever. People want to see collective action, and Trump could be cruising to a landslide right now with exactly the same Pandemic figures, even much worse economic figures, had he just been the strong populist he always dreamed of being. The Pandemic was the penalty before the empty goal, and he takes that ball, runs across half the field to his own goal and shoots it in there. Because he is w e a k.

[urutzizu]

New restrictions in France



In Marseille and Guadeloupe:

-Total closure of the hospitality sector from Saturday.
-Closure of all establishments open to the public except those with a strict health protocol (such as Shops or Museums).

Major Urban areas including Bordeaux, Lyon, Toulouse, Nice, Saint-Etienne, Rennes, Montpellier, Lille, Paris and inner suburban departments, Rouen and Grenoble:

-Ban on gatherings of more than 10 people in public spaces.
-Hospitality Curfew from 10 pm
-Closure of sports areas and gymnasiums.
-Teleworking mandatory wherever possible

France was trying to emulate the Swedish strategy in regards to the second wave. Since the Summer the French government has been one of the most vocal in Europe in ruling out a return to confinement measures and learning to live with the Virus, even Friday two weeks ago, when the situation had already gotten quite bad, Castex and Macron unexpectedly rejected a tightening of restrictions. Now the worsening situation in the hospitals and ICU's has forced their hand. The problem ends up being, that at the end of the day the French were probably a bit too French for the Swedish model. Government strategy can only do so much, it would seem that it is difficult to emulate the Swedish model without the corresponding traits in the population. Certain quite tangible restrictions are in my view likely necessary permanently in most European Countries until a vaccine is found.
Another conclusion from the situation in France (and Spain) is the the effectiveness of mandating Masks in open spaces is probably zero, if not counterproductive. I am happy that we haven't (yet) fallen to that particular kind of political actionism. 

[urutzizu]

4058 New Infections in Germany . Many Cities such as Berlin, Bremen, Frankfurt and large parts of NRW close to or past 50/100k threshold when which contact tracing abilities are said to begin to deteriorate. According to a mayor in the affected areas, the number of contacts that the local health authorities need to reach and isolate is now about ~80 per positive case compared to 3-5 in the first wave.

[urutzizu]

Testing and Contact tracing in Germany (or at least here where I live, Incidence: 112/100k) has essentially collapsed. Anecdotally, but waiting times for positive Test results up to 7 Days and even worse delays in informing close contacts. Some health authorities in other parts of the country have said they will only follow up those with contact in risk groups and are telling other people to inform their contacts themselves. Not even the one of the best contact tracing systems in Europe can cope with this surge.

For this reason the meeting between the Federal Government and the States has been advanced to Wednesday, where new restrictions are planned, which have been leaked (as much as I usually despise the publication in question, they have been spot-on everytime in the past on this). The Federal Government wants a partial lockdown nationwide, similar to Netherlands/Belgium. Restaurants and Bars shut down, Social contacts and events severely restricted, Schools and Shops to stay open. They hope that by acting (in their view) earlier then other countries in their respective infection curves, the measures can be lifted after two weeks (similar hopes have not materialized the rest of Europe). Likely there will be resistance from many of the eastern state governments.
France similarly will apparently formalise new restrictions then, and Macron will most likely be forced to drop his resistance to limited confinement, because Nightly Curfews and Masks outside are unsurprisingly not really having any impact.

Seems very difficult to get around pretty severe restrictions to economic life. And so what every politician in Europe ruled out repeatedly, seems coming. It's very sad that we have so unimaginative politicians. The Pandemic has really laid bare the schism between the West and Asia.

[urutzizu]

I think it's mainly a reaction because during the first shutdown decision (16 March) they left Restaurants open whilst closing practically everything else including retail (copied from a similar decision in Austria) and you ended up with anger that people were gathering in restaurants, whilst everyone was being told to stay home, so many States saw themselves forced to unilaterally shut them over the next few days. But I agree that it goes too far.


The situation in France is truly unfortunate. It seems that the Government believed that the second wave of the Virus was itself not an actual threat at all, but only the public had to be shown that the Government was doing something to reassure them. For this reason they deliberately only announced measures which sounded comprehensive and strict, but were actually completely useless and did not disrupt either social contacts or economic activity. So they went from ruling out a national confinement under all circumstances, to when cases started rising to mandating Masks outdoors, then on Sep 11 when daily cases surpassed 10000, not only unexpectedly rejecting new measures also cutting the quarantine time, then when things started getting bad in the hospitals they announced that they were closing bars in many cities, but in reality this only affected a very small percentage of establishments that served alcohol exclusively (and the rest continued operating happily). Then when the situation was getting really bad and daily cases surpassing 30000 a day, Macron announced his big bad nightly curfew in the big Cities and a few days later it was extended to practically the entire country. It seems that only this week they really actually recognized the gravity of the Situation in the ICU's and now because of waiting too long had to enforce much stricter measures that are going to be disastrous for the french economy which is one of the hardest hit in Europe already. Luckily Germany was hit later so we could learn (and of course has more sensible people ruling us.)

[urutzizu]

Founded by a Turkish immigrant too.

You know, just sayin....

One who got a "recommendation" at age 10 by his teacher (quasi-binding at the time in most of Germany) to go to Hauptschule, the lowest type of secondary school. Only after Intense Insistence by his Parents and an Intervention by his German Neighbors (because, you know, the Word of "proper" Germans is necessary to vouch) did the School eventually allow him to go to Gymnasium and later to university.

The fact remains, if you have difficulties with learning German at age 6-10 due to not speaking it at home, that's it for many teachers, you won't get a recommendation for Gymnasium. And that's essentially your educational life path and career molded. And even where it isn't binding, many Immigrant Parents (for Cultural Reasons chiefly) are unwilling to challenge it. Its pretty shocking how much potential our Country pours down the drain; many Turkish friends are very proud of right now, and rightly so.

[urutzizu]

COVID situation continues to be very serious in Germany.

But be it as it may, today is BLACK FRIDAY (in some stores Black Week(end)). So, let's go shopping. And indeed many seem to be doing just that.

However, facilities like museums or galleries - which operate under the same hygiene and sanitation protocols as consumer electronics retail stores - have been shut down for almost a month now, with no end in sight. That's probably supposed to make sense, even if it doesn't.

Politicians and scientists have recently pointed out that the current lockdown "light" measures seem to be much less effective than expected and hoped for. I guess that's because the constant transmission of mixed and incoherent messages leads to people not taking COVID seriously any longer, having that topic checked off as "over and done with" for themselves. After all, you can make a good bargain today.

There a no good options, but in my perspective it is preferable than the Austrian/UK/French approach of screwing the Economy through JoJo-ing Hard Lockdowns or attempting Herd Immunity. The Partial Lockdown hasn't brought down the Infection rate, but it is hard enough to keep the Infection rate stable and soft enough that our Country can cope economically.

Composite PMI numbers for November:



L to R: Eurozone: 45.1; UK: 47.4; France 39.9; Germany 52.0

Value above 50 indicates Economic Growth, Germany being one of few in Europe to do so. Essentially Germany can stick Culture and much of Hospitality being shut down, as long as the rest of the Economy remains operating (Manufacturing, Retail, Hairdressers etc.) and Schools stay open, not least because the first two are a smaller part of the economy than in many other European Countries. Google Mobility is also only down by about 10 percent, compared to about 40 during the first Lockdown and a much smaller decrease than in most of the rest of Europe.

If we have to for at least the next few months, as the Government has strongly indicated, we can do that - arguably it is one of the few more quasi-sustainable strategies in Europe right now. But I guess it is more of a moral Issue then about whether it is acceptable to essentially sacrifice some 300 odd people per day and a ton of jobs in culture and hospitality to keep the rest of the Country going.