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In Germany there are strict rules for personal contacts from the beginning of November: members of two households and a maximum of ten people can meet in public. The details of the rules differ from state to state. However, celebrations in apartments are considered “unacceptable” everywhere. That should change for Christmas and New Years Eve.
From December 23 to January 1, gatherings of a maximum of ten people should be possible, even if they come from different households. Children up to 14 years old are not included in the count. This is what it says in a resolution proposed by the heads of government of the federal states, who will discuss with Chancellor Angela Merkel on Wednesday.
The virus doesn’t care about Christmas
The desire for a Christmas party as normal as possible is understandable, but the proposed relaxation is certainly associated with risks. Because the corona virus doesn’t care if it’s Christmas. It is still as contagious as before and can be especially, but not exclusively, dangerous for older family members.
A few hours before the proposed resolution of the country’s leaders was known, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned against the relaxation of crown restrictions during Christmas, especially when the authorities do not have the infection process completely under control.
“If people infect each other and if a country does not have the infrastructure to track cases and isolate contacts and quarantine, then relaxation will lead to more contagion,” said WHO emergency aid coordinator Mike Ryan. , Monday night in Geneva. .
The outbreak in Germany continues to spiral out of control
It is still uncertain whether the number of infections in Germany will be so low in a month that the infection chains can be traced again. The federal state heads of government want to lower the numbers significantly again with the tighter contact restrictions in early December before they relax them later.
Private gatherings should only be allowed between members of two households and a maximum of five people; in this case, children are also excluded. The country’s chiefs are also asking people to self-quarantine for several days before Christmas.
Since the partial shutdown in early November, the number of new infections has stabilized. In some districts, the incidence of seven days per 100,000 inhabitants is again below 50 or even below 35. In regions where the initial values were very high, such as around Munich or Frankfurt, the incidence of seven days of more than 200 cases registered per 100,000 inhabitants (see graphs).
Before the partial closure, the figures in the regions were sometimes higher than 300. This confirms that the latest countermeasures taken will take the longest to drop again.
The increase in Covid 19 cases in intensive care units is also slowly slowing down. These numbers always follow the development of the infection numbers with a delay of a few weeks. Infected people take time to become so seriously ill that they need intensive care; and it will be time before they are healthy enough to leave the intensive care unit or die.
There is no formula for a safe festival
The problem with Christmas and New Year’s Eve is that there is no one-size-fits-all formula for determining what relaxation is acceptable under what circumstances. “There is a higher and lower risk of the situation getting better or worse,” said Ryan, a WHO official.
Governments would have to weigh the risks of the virus spreading further against the economic and social risks of maintaining restrictions. If the restrictions are too strict, there is a risk of great frustration, corona fatigue, and possibly resistance to the measures.
At the same time, it is conceivable that the population no longer perceives contact restrictions as understandable as a result of sudden measures relaxed during Christmas. According to the motto: celebrations were allowed during Christmas and New Year’s Eve, so why not also on my birthday?
The interiors are super spreading places
The great influence of private celebrations in Germany on the spread of the coronavirus cannot be quantified in detail. According to the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), health authorities were able to document where infections occurred in almost a quarter of the infections recorded in Germany in mid-July.
By far the highest number of infections originated in private homes, followed by nursing homes and nursing homes. However, in these settings it is also particularly easy to trace the infection chains because contact persons are known. Therefore, public places are likely to be under-represented in the statistics.
A US simulation study, based on cell phone data from 98 million Americans, concludes that the majority of all corona infections take place in places, primarily indoors, where larger groups people meet for long periods of time in a confined space. So where there are a lot of lasting contacts.
The Christmas and New Year celebrations fit exactly into this scheme. The risk increases if it is assumed that people will unite multiple times in different constellations.
Each of these situations again offers the possibility of contagion. The Spanish newspaper »El País« illustrated the risk of corona infection indoors some time ago (here).
The Thanksgiving Trap
The fact that the holidays have the potential to fuel the corona pandemic has also been shown recently in Canada. The people there celebrated Thanksgiving with their families and friends on October 12. At that time, the number of infections in the country was already trending upward. However, this was reinforced by the single day of the festival (see graph below).
“The reason we’re pretty sure that Thanksgiving has increased the number of infections is that we saw the highest number of cases on record so far in the two weeks since,” epidemiologist Laura Rosella of the United States told Time. University of Toronto. Magazine “. This fits in with the incubation period, after which people showed symptoms and were reported.
Experts in the United States now fear that the Thanksgiving festival there last weekend could have a similar effect. Since the number of infections in the United States was already very high, the holiday could increase the numbers even more than in Canada.
According to a risk assessment tool developed by researchers, the risk of finding a positive wreath at a Thanksgiving party in the United States with just ten attendees was close to 100 percent in some regions of the country.
Weighing personal risk
The values cannot be transferred to Germany, but there is a connection: the larger the meetings and the more widespread the virus is on the whereabouts of the participants, the greater the risk of infection.
The extent to which family celebrations at Christmas will affect the number of infections in this country depends not only on the number of participants, but also largely on the spread of the virus in the population at the end of December and whether it will be possible to stop the chains contagion that started at Christmas.
In any case, the current weekly average of around 18,000 new infections per day shouldn’t be a good basis for a celebratory marathon at the end of the year.
