German TV medical correspondent sheds light on country’s Covid-19 track record

Germany managed to come through the first phase of the coronavirus crisis in relatively good shape thanks to a combination of good luck and good preparation, German TV medical correspondent Dr. Christoph Specht said in a RIAS Zoom Talk meeting on Tuesday. A regular commentator on medical news for German networks such as NTV, RTL and ZDF, Specht explained to a group of about 30 RIAS fellows, alumni and candidates from the United States and Germany that a lot of testing and a high number of intensive care beds in Germany also played an important role.

“First of all let me say we’re just in the beginning of the pandemic, we’re not through yet,” Specht said. “If things went well up until now, it’s just the situation now and not the end. There was luck too for Germany, just pure luck. Italy was hit first in Europe so we had an advance warning of two to four weeks before it came to Germany so we saw what could happen. If Germany had been the first country hit in Europe, the situation might have been different.”

Specht added that Germany was also lucky that many of those first infected by Covid-19 were relatively young and healthy who contracted the virus while on skiing vacations in Italy and Austria. He noted that senior citizens are more vulnerable to the virus. That is why the case fatality rate in Germany was under 1.0 in the early weeks and has risen to just 4.6 now compared to levels above 12 in Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States. Germany’s Health Minister Jens Spahn also credited testing and intensive care beds for the relatively low numbers in Germany.

Specht, who is based in Düsseldorf, said that another contributing factor helping Germany was that there is universal health care in Germany available to everyone. He said Germany also started with far more intensive care beds per 100,000 inhabitants (35) than other countries in the United States and even raised the number to 39 beds per 100,000 — many of which were not needed. He also said that Germans proved to be dutiful in following the guidelines from the governments and health authorities.

“I think that played a role too,” he said. “It might be a piece of the German DNA. But in the beginning people were really frightened by the scenes on the evening news from Italy and Spain, and they wanted to do everything they could to avoid the pandemic. In the beginning people really did everything they could to reduce their risks. That helped a lot.”

Asked about criticism from Italy that Germany and the rest of the European Union should have done more to help Italy, he agreed. “We could have done more,” he said.

Specht said that even though the numbers of infected and reproduction rates in Germany are low and under control in most of the country, there was an understandable fear of a second wave. “We don’t know if there will be a second wave. We don’t know if it will strike in a couple of weeks or a couple of months or in the autumn or winter. I believe it will hit us in the winter.”

Germany will likely be a case study in the future for what might work and not work in a pandemic, Specht said. He added that no one knows for sure if the extensive lockdown measures the government implemented on March 22 worked or not. “We don’t know what measures did what, what effect they had. We don’t know if the lockdown helped. I personally believe the lockdown, especially at the beginning, was the right measure to take. And it’s a good idea now to loosen the lockdown as we are in Germany.”