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The researchers calculated the infection and mortality rate for a small city and a coronavirus hot spot in Germany. The results are astonishing. But what do they say about the situation in Germany?
A mobile testing laboratory when used in a community in the Heinsberg district.
Are there more than 1.8 million people in Germany, and therefore significantly more than officially reported, infected with the new Sars-CoV-2 coronavirus? And is the actual death rate (say how many infected people die from the virus) actually less than 0.5 percent? In this case, the virus would not be as dangerous as death rates in many countries suggest. The so-called Heinsberg study suggests the conclusions mentioned above. On Monday, researchers at the University of Bonn led by Hendrik Streeck and Gunther Hartmann presented full data on this for the first time. However, if you look closer, you should be skeptical about whether the results can be transferred from one location to the whole of Germany.
Overloaded with meaning
For the Heinsberg study, which has been controversial for weeks, between March 30 and April 6 in Gangelt, a city with a good 12,500 inhabitants in North Rhine-Westphalia, the researchers interviewed 919 people from 405 households and they examined them for Sars-CoV-2. . Both active infections using PCR tests and survived infections using antibody tests were recorded. The data and calculations now presented have not yet been evaluated by independent experts.
The study has been overloaded with importance for a long time. Its objective is to clarify a series of pressing questions, such as those related to infection of the population, the danger of the virus or the possible risks of contagion. North Rhine-Westphalia Prime Minister Armin Laschet already saw the oral presentation of the first preliminary results on Maundy Thursday as a sufficient basis for a quick relaxation of the closure measures.
The authors provide reliable data for Gangelt: There were 15 percent of the population infected before April 6, five times more than was officially reported. The effective mortality rate based on all infected was around 0.35 percent. That would mean that “only” three to four out of 1,000 people die from Sars-CoV-2.
However, independent experts warned before Easter and again on Monday that reliable statements for the whole of Germany could not be made from the study results. Streeck also admitted this on Monday. Because Gangelt was a Sars CoV-2 access point. After several carnivals, many people became infected here in a short time. Therefore, it can be assumed that the infection rate there is not transferable throughout Germany. Therefore, the dark figure calculated by the researchers is also unlikely to be realistic for Germany.
The low mortality rate can also be a snapshot that applies only to Gangelt. Because there were only seven crown deaths in total during the data collection. Little can be said with such small numbers, criticized Gerard Krause of the Helmholtz Institute in Braunschweig on Monday. This is demonstrated by the situation in Gangelt itself: after data collection, another person died there from Covid-19 lung disease caused by Sars-CoV-2. If you include this case, the death rate increases to 0.41 percent. Second, in Gangelt there were mainly infected people among the carnival festival visitors, but there were no virus entries in nursing homes or nursing homes. As a result, significantly fewer people were infected in the main risk groups. Therefore, a statement about the danger of the virus for the entire population is almost impossible based on the Heinsberg study.
The above diseases are not more easily infected
However, there are some encouraging tips that can be seen from the data now presented. First, even people with previous illnesses and the elderly are apparently no more susceptible to infection with Sars-CoV-2. Second, not all people living in a household are infected. In Gangelt, as expected, there was an increased risk of contracting the virus if a roommate was infected. But surprisingly, the additional risk was less if you lived in a three or four person home instead of a two person home. Apparently, the probability of transmission decreases with increasing household size. You can’t explain that at the moment, Streeck emphasizes.
It is conceivable that the number of residents will also increase the available space and therefore make it easier to avoid each other. In addition, contact is not as intense between all members of the household, as it is to live together as a couple or with teenage children.
However, if not all the people in the shared apartment are infected, then it can be expected that, with careful observance of the rules of distance and hygiene in normal public life, without major celebrations, they will not be infected by every infected person who pass by or sit in the same room
