New COVID 19 cases in Germany are causing fresh panic, the country’s major media outlets are suggesting. It can be said, therefore, what was believed to be a thing of the past, or an issue that was tackled finally at last, is again wreaking havoc and causing the authorities to launch into a mitigation drive in the country.
Truth be told, not since the economic decay in the post-First World War period or the political mess and social unrest in the country prior to the start of the Second World War has Germany faced such a desperate situation as what it faces today.
Much of it is not down to the fact that countless lives have been lost owing to the Coronavirus pandemic. In fact, on that count, there have been a little over 9,000 deaths in a country where no fewer than 190,000 have recovered given the existential threat of the Coronavirus.
The problem facing the country is the uncertainty that emanates from the classic supposition; “what if” the second wave, as being reported in the German media, proves itself to be deadlier than the first?
What if, the new COVID 19 cases in Germany arising out of a second wave of the epidemic take a major toll on the country?
That being said, here’s where the German population is currently at: 8.3 crores (as per 2019 figures).
Just how many can be considered safe and far off from the reach of a pandemic that at its might has claimed not less than 35,000 lives in Italy, nearly, 28,500 in Spain, and over 30,000 in France?
It’s often not what can happen to you; it’s what might happen to you in relation to a close neighboring country that could hold the German authorities in a spot of bother.
This is one of the reasons why, as of the last week, one of the biggest pieces of news in all of German media was the confirmation that the state of Bavaria was to hold free COVID-19 health checkups at all airports.
Maybe, that’s one of the ways in which the Angela Merkel-led country is gearing up to face an epidemic it had handled reasonably well in the recent months with much of the Western media ‘hailing’ Germany’s handling of the fatal, contagious virus.
We ought to remember, this is a country whose laboratories were being hailed for having stocked the ‘necessary’ quantum of medical kits to combat a situation responding to which several nations in the wider world fared poorly.
It wasn’t that long ago when Germany made welcome news for its medical preparedness, a resounding success at testing and tracing the virus, a situation quite similar to Israel.
But all of that seems to be a thing of the past.
Present-day Germany, even DW.com reported, is gearing up to face a possibly challenging next few months or maybe even a quarter, where, in the words of Mr. Michael Kretschemer, premier of the state of Saxony, ” It is already taking place every day. We have new clusters of infection every day which could become very high numbers.”
Many are concerned about a general uptick in the daily cases. This is understood by the following excerpt from DW.com:
Kretschmer’s comments come a day after the government’s infectious disease institute, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) noted a significant rise in daily new infections, from around 500 to over 800 at one point last week.
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“This development is very worrying and will continue to be monitored very closely by the RKI,” a spokeswoman told DPA news agency on Friday evening.
“A further exacerbation of the situation must be avoided,” she added.