What did the lockdown bring?
The German numbers are above those of the often criticized lockdown-free Sweden.
But are the nursing homes the reason for this?
Munich - Germany, in addition to vaccinations, is relying on lockdown to fight Corona.
The country has been tight for five months.
Research by the
Bild
now calls this path into question - the numbers in Germany are sometimes higher than in countries without a lockdown.
The reason for this is said to be the inadequate protection against the virus in old people's and nursing homes.
Nursing homes the reason for high corona death rates?
Percentage even over lockdown-free Sweden
As the newspaper reports, the majority of corona deaths in the second wave came from nursing homes.
According to repeated inquiries from the newspaper to the health ministries of the federal states, over 80 percent of the deceased lived in homes in many countries.
The Baden-Württemberg Ministry of Social Affairs confirmed a
SWR
report that said more than 40 percent of all deaths there came from nursing homes.
In Hesse, the regional council confirmed that 66 percent of deaths occurred in homes in November.
In Schleswig-Holstein, according to the Ministry of Health in Kiel, between September 21 and December 14 it was even 89 percent.
According to
ARD
, experts in Sweden assume
around 50 percent.
Experts such as the virologist Hendrik Streeck (University of Bonn) or Jonas Schmidt-Chanasit (University of Hamburg) had already called for better measures for the homes in autumn, such as FFP2 masks or quick tests.
However, these warnings were apparently not sufficiently received by those responsible, even if the protection of the nursing homes had been increased through tests before visits.
The homes could therefore explain why Germany, despite a tough lockdown, did not manage to push its corona numbers below a country like Sweden, where in the last few months fewer people per inhabitant have usually died of Covid-19 than in Germany.
Specifically, according to the Robert Koch Institute in Germany, with its 83 million inhabitants, 59,564 people died of the virus from November 1 to February 27, in Sweden (10.3 million inhabitants) it was 6769. In percentage terms, that means 0.066 percent in Sweden compared to 0.072 percent in Germany.
Sweden had left schools, shops and restaurants open in autumn and winter under strict corona conditions.
Corona: hard lockdown, yes or no?
Kubicki criticizes the government, Lauterbach warns
The FDP politician and Bundestag Vice President Wolfgang Kubicki criticizes the fact that the federal government and some prime ministers “felt technically and morally superior to the Swedish way”.
According to Kubicki, Germany needs “a better balance between health protection and the protection of fundamental rights”.
The SPD health expert Karl Lauterbach, on the other hand, defends the government's lockdown path - on the other hand, he criticizes Austria, for example, for opening things too quickly.
“Austria is loosening up in the B117 wave,” he writes on Twitter.
“Many there will pay for that with their lives, if one can honestly describe it.
At the end of the day there will be another lockdown for which the deceased cannot buy anything.
Not an example for us. "
