The research of German virologist Hendrik Streeck deserves your attention.

[Iterate]

On April 1 he was interviewed on ZDFheute. It's in German, but you can get an approximation of the interview through youtube CC auto translate settings, and at the same time enjoy the laughs of a poorly heard literal translation.

The TL;DW version is this:

A single highly-infected village of Heinsberg was isolated, sampled, and studied for a first approximation of transmission patterns. They went door-to-door. Thousands of swabs were taken from every surface in the homes - from cell phones to door knobs to toilets. Cats were tested as well. The tests did not find live virus on the surfaces even in houses with multiple infections, and the cats happily chewed the swabs.

They interviewed residents in the households and took blood samples. The infection pathways were traced. Most reported lost sense of smell and taste for a few days. Other reports indicate temporary deafness. It isn't likely you would catch the virus in German grocery shopping. The virus spread by direct contact, especially speaking face to face, confined spaces, and in large crowds.

Then came some lengthy and meaningless tangents. If you noticed that interviewer Markus Lanz is a bit of a jerk, you did listen carefully.

I hesitate to post this as it might be misunderstood to justify minimal controls in the US. That's not what he's saying. He's advocating applying the results, in Germany, to a tailored approach for the next phase.

On April 2, he was interviewed on DW, with translation:

The piece starts at 8:07.


On April 4, the NYT posted this article:

A German Exception? Why the Country’s Coronavirus Death Rate Is Low

Another explanation for the low fatality rate is that Germany has been testing far more people than most nations. That means it catches more people with few or no symptoms, increasing the number of known cases, but not the number of fatalities.
....
By now, Germany is conducting around 350,000 coronavirus tests a week, far more than any other European country. Early and widespread testing has allowed the authorities to slow the spread of the pandemic by isolating known cases while they are infectious. It has also enabled lifesaving treatment to be administered in a more timely way.
...
At the end of April, health authorities also plan to roll out a large-scale antibody study, testing random samples of 100,000 people across Germany every week to gauge where immunity is building up.
...
“Maybe our biggest strength in Germany,” said Professor Kräusslich, “is the rational decision-making at the highest level of government combined with the trust the government enjoys in the population.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/04/world/europe/germany-coronavirus-death-rate.html?smtyp=cur&smid=fb-nytimes&fbclid=IwAR2xAQCGdqYvSgwtTkCPpAZFLNwg_QrAYhrh5jWNspPQ4AL2wVYqJ-bNNu0

If needed, you can get past the registration with a simple email address, at least for he duration. Great article, really a must-read.

The Heinsberg study should be published this week, possibly even Monday.

[blitzen]

1. "Rational decision making at the highest levels of government": What a concept!

Maybe we should try that.

My son and I spent some time in Slovenia last May. It is paradise on earth (compared to the U.S., at least). Our running gag was to remark on one of the many good aspects of their society: "Why do they do this?" "Because it's rational."

[DetlefK]

2. The big difference is that Germany has none of the political partisanship as in the US.

The electoral system of Germany is not winner-take-all but a combination of winner-take-all and proportionality. That makes it next to impossible for a political party to get a majority by itself and THAT means that in Germany political parties need each other's votes all the time. On a national level, no german party has ever gone above 40%.

Negotiations "I'll vote for your's, you'll vote for mine" with your political enemies are part of day-to-day political business.

The level of rabid, uncompromising, radical hyperpartisanship as displayed in the US would be political suicide in Germany's electoral system. Trump's and McConnell's crass and confrontational politics wouldn't win them a dime in a political system where EVERYTHING eventually comes down to cutting a deal with the political opposition.



For example: In Angela Merkel's first term, she presided over coalition-government of Conservatives and Social-Democrats, each at 35% of votes. Now, the Conservatives and the Social-Democrats never liked each other, but they were able to get their shit together and negotiated for a coalition-treaty they could both live with.





Germany's political system is slow and ponderous and boring, but it provides for a very stable foundation that preemptively prevents political excesses and ensures a functioning government in all circumstances.

[Iterate]

4. Sure, and there's no organic path from two-party to multi-party.

Early on, there was only the one issue that mattered most, that being slavery, and in 1860 the four party split led the south to reject the election, the proximate cause for secession. Later, I suppose the two-party system did function to iron out coalition/factional splits within the party mechanism, but that's now almost completely broken.

I don't see how we even get back to two "healthy" parties. Republicans can't give up their current base, and not many with any educated competence could be attracted to them. They've doomed themselves, but nearly doomed the rest of us too.

Another difference with Germany that I see is the attitude toward competence -it's respected. The relatively lower importance of consumerism in Germany means that the "I've got my opinion and it's just as valid as anyone else's, therefore I should fly the plane" attitude won't get you very far.

What I disliked about Markus Lanz in the interview above was mainly that he kept trying to push Streeck into political judgements, positions, and pronouncements that he was clearly uncomfortable with making. That wasn't his area of expertise, and he kept saying so.

[Chainfire]

3. What Trump will be unable to hide from

Is the difference in the way he handled this pandemic, and the way that other countries have. We all faced the exact same situation. Some governments had smart, strong effective leaders who worked to save their people, some crossed their fingers and hoped it would go away before it ruined their political careers. Trump was willing to sacrifice the health of the nation for the economy and now it is pretty apparent, he is going to destroy both. MAGA