THE QUESTION - We talk more about the “ reproduktionszahl ” in Germany than the “ reproduction rate ” in France, but it is the same indicator, better known as R0, that Berlin favors in terms of communication to describe the progression of the coronavirus epidemic. On April 15, Chancellor Angela Merkel - a physicist by training - made particularly clear remarks about its meaning and its consequences on the health system.
Read also: Coronavirus: is France following a better or worse trajectory than the other countries?
This R0 corresponds to the average number of people that a contagious person can infect. The threshold of "1" quickly became the compass of the epidemic: it means that an infected person directly contaminates another person. However, for three days - from Saturday May 9th to Monday May 11th - the German R0 went back above this threshold, which immediately fueled fears about a second wave of the epidemic. Are these founded? Is this rebound the almost mechanical consequence of deconfinement
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