To what extent has Germany’s capacity to conduct widespread testing lead to much better containment of coronavirus than some of its neighbours?
Late last year — long before most people had heard of the new coronavirus now sweeping the globe — scientists in Germany sprang into action to develop a test for the virus causing an unusual respiratory disease in central China.
They had one by mid-January — and labs around the country were ready to start using it just weeks later, around the same time that Europe's most populous country registered its first case.
“It was clear that if the epidemic swept over here from China, then we had to start testing," said Hendrik Borucki, a spokesman for Bioscientia Healthcare, which operates 19 labs in Germany.
That quick work stands in stark contrast to delaysand missteps in other countries. Coupled with Germany's large number of intensive care beds and its early social distancing measures, it could explain one of the most interesting puzzles of the COVID-19 pandemic: Why people with the virus in Germany currently appear to be dying at much lower rates than in neighboring countries.
The numbers are remarkable: As confirmed cases in Germany passed 71,000 the death toll Wednesday was 775, according to a tally kept by Johns Hopkins University. In contrast, Italy has reported almost 106,000 infections and more than 12,400 deaths, while Spain has more than 96,000 cases, with more than 8,400 deaths.
France has four times as many virus deaths as Germany and Britain has twice as many, even though both countries have fewer reported infections.
There may be many factors at play, but experts said early on that fast and widespread testing gave Germany an edge.
“The reason why we in Germany have so few deaths at the moment compared to the number of infected can be largely explained by the fact that we are doing an extremely large number of lab diagnoses," said virologist Dr. Christian Drosten, whose team developed the first test for the new virus at Berlin's Charité hospital — established over 300 years ago to treat plague victims.
He estimated that Germany is now capable of conducting up to 500,000 tests a week.
https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/worl...ermany-scores-early-against-virus/ar-BB120lba
Late last year — long before most people had heard of the new coronavirus now sweeping the globe — scientists in Germany sprang into action to develop a test for the virus causing an unusual respiratory disease in central China.
They had one by mid-January — and labs around the country were ready to start using it just weeks later, around the same time that Europe's most populous country registered its first case.
“It was clear that if the epidemic swept over here from China, then we had to start testing," said Hendrik Borucki, a spokesman for Bioscientia Healthcare, which operates 19 labs in Germany.
That quick work stands in stark contrast to delaysand missteps in other countries. Coupled with Germany's large number of intensive care beds and its early social distancing measures, it could explain one of the most interesting puzzles of the COVID-19 pandemic: Why people with the virus in Germany currently appear to be dying at much lower rates than in neighboring countries.
The numbers are remarkable: As confirmed cases in Germany passed 71,000 the death toll Wednesday was 775, according to a tally kept by Johns Hopkins University. In contrast, Italy has reported almost 106,000 infections and more than 12,400 deaths, while Spain has more than 96,000 cases, with more than 8,400 deaths.
France has four times as many virus deaths as Germany and Britain has twice as many, even though both countries have fewer reported infections.
There may be many factors at play, but experts said early on that fast and widespread testing gave Germany an edge.
“The reason why we in Germany have so few deaths at the moment compared to the number of infected can be largely explained by the fact that we are doing an extremely large number of lab diagnoses," said virologist Dr. Christian Drosten, whose team developed the first test for the new virus at Berlin's Charité hospital — established over 300 years ago to treat plague victims.
He estimated that Germany is now capable of conducting up to 500,000 tests a week.
https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/worl...ermany-scores-early-against-virus/ar-BB120lba