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Germany is again undergoing a crown lockdown. Shortly before Day X, Anne Will invited her panel to an appeal hearing: Are there no alternatives to the restrictions?
The situation in Germany due to the spread of the coronavirus is worrying, there was also an agreement on the ARD talk show “Anne Will”. The action is suitable for society as a whole. However, the discussion seemed a bit like looking into the crystal ball, math.
The guests
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Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger (FDP), judge at the Bavarian Constitutional Court and former Federal Minister of Justice
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Viola Priesemann, Research Group Leader at the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization
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Markus Söder (CSU), party leader and Prime Minister of Bavaria
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Helge Braun (CDU), Head of the Federal Chancellery and Federal Minister for Special Tasks
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Stefan Willich, Director of the Institute of Social Medicine, Epidemiology and Health Economics of Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin
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Till Brönner, jazz musician and photographer
The positions
Countering the spread of the pandemic with contact restrictions – that’s the plan for people across the country for the next four weeks. Therefore, Will’s initial question had to be about possible alternatives. “Of course there are alternatives,” Söder emphasized about the possibility of contamination. Without seriously questioning the resolutions he supported at the Prime Minister’s Conference last Wednesday. The fact that in 75 percent of cases the infection chains are no longer traceable requires that the emergency brake be activated. His union colleague Braun helped him: “It was always clear that if the number of infections increases despite all the precautionary measures, at some point only the instrument of restriction will remain.”
The group’s review in the summer of this year with very stable infection figures seemed almost melancholic. Dr. Willich also basically agreed with Braun and Söder: “I think the timing is exactly right,” he said, also with a view to diminishing capabilities in intensive care medicine. But he restricted this in several ways: For a relatively low mortality rate of 0.2 to 0.3 percent, serious side effects of the confinement are accepted: existential threats, poverty, social isolation, deterioration in clinical care beyond Corona. You have to adjust regionally and differentiate individual areas, for example protecting more risk groups. Culture and gastronomy would not have allowed relevant chains of contagion through meticulously good hygiene concepts. Söder replied, “You just don’t know.” The scientific recommendation is to reduce contact by three quarters. Hygiene concepts and appeals to personal responsibility would no longer help.
Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger attempted to initiate a discussion on the proportionality of state measures as violations of fundamental rights. Interferences with fundamental rights should be built on a stronger legal basis to gain acceptance. Will’s talk show shouldn’t provide the framework for this this time. So he stuck with Söder for a short nickname and the former minister was left out of the discussion.
The date of the night
“People do not go to a concert because the Federal Ministry of Health allows it, but because they feel safe,” Brönner emphasized. He made it clear that hygiene concepts worked in his industry, but the state decreed that millions of freelancers would dig the water. The total blockade of art and culture, starting in March 2020, will last for more than a year. Braun’s statement that culture is important and that € 10 billion is being made available to make up for self-employed sales losses seemed a bit helpless. Above all because it also showed that other industries are more systemically relevant than leisure activities. Brönner also raised doubts that aid would eventually reach the right recipients without bureaucracy.
The thrill of the night
It is probably due to the social threat posed by the coronavirus that the dispute between commentators does not currently set the tone on political talk shows on this topic. The same thing happened this Sunday night. The tenor was in unison: the numbers have to go down. Priesemann vehemently tried to justify this mathematically. And there was something like embers that, under normal circumstances, would sometimes burn an interview studio. Even politics has now understood what exponential growth is. This took the air out of those who consider hygiene concepts as a safety standard in the current infection situation. “The spread is driven by the behavior of people,” he said. In summer, the situation was under control. Reaching this state again is worthwhile to make things in perspective possible again. That doesn’t work with uncontrolled spread. The problem is the carriers of the virus who don’t even know they are carriers.
Willich also emphasized that contact restrictions are currently the gold standard. However, he added: “In the long term, it is too optimistic that we will only have to overcome a few months until the vaccine is available.” Therefore, the best possible protection of risk groups and the best equipment of health authorities to monitor infection chains would be important. That doesn’t help if the numbers increased exponentially, Priesemann said. If the number of cases fell, the health authorities would not be necessary, says the physicist. Braun said: Getting used to high numbers also means getting used to dynamics. That’s dangerous.
Fact checking
What does exponential growth really mean? It describes the multiplication of cases of infection in a short time. Mathematical calculation models help to assess the development of the pandemic and the risks associated with it, and to measure the number of cases of infection that increase over time.
In the case of infectious diseases such as Covid-19, exponential growth is assumed when there is a possibility that an infected person could infect multiple people. Assuming that a person can only infect two more, which in turn infect two more, the numbers rise relatively quickly. The period of time in which the number of infections increases becomes shorter and shorter. In the future, this can lead to undue stress on the healthcare system, as measured by the proportion of people who must be treated for Covid-19.
