[Skybird]

Focus Magazine reports on a - no longer - secret assessment paper by the Grman interior ministry.

https://www.focus.de/politik/deutsch..._11851290.html

According to Horst Seehofer (CSU) and his State Secretary Markus Kerber, you have to go into a second phase after the Easter holidays, such as reopening schools and kindergartens. And to gradually reduce the restrictions on public life so that “consumer areas can be reactivated quickly”.

In a number of “business-related service areas”, business activity could start up again, for example with auditors and tax advisors up to car repair services. "Only with a foreseeable end to the initial restrictions can a return to previous economic and social life be guaranteed," says the paper, which is based on the analysis by the Robert Koch Institute and a number of other experts. The paper is available in VIP News, and the non-profit portal “Ask the State” has also published it.

The aim is therefore to increase the doubling of the number of infected people, i.e. to slow the rate of increase accordingly. It is currently nine days before the rate doubles. Only when the rate slows down to two weeks can those responsible give the all-clear.

The BMI authors base their strategy on the South Korean model. There, thanks to an extensive test system, the number of unreported cases is extremely low. According to the authors, the early exit from the crisis mode in Germany can only succeed if the risk patients are quickly identified and isolated. Furthermore, the federal states would have to increase the number of virus tests nationwide to up to 200,000 a day - 1.4 million a week.

According to Federal Minister of Health Jens Spahn (CDU), the rate is currently just under a third for the seven-day period. However, one wants to increase this number massively. His colleague from North Rhine-Westphalia, Karl-Josef Laumann, sees his country on the right track: At present, the capacities between the Rhine and Weser were sufficient for 20,000 tests per day. Half a million people have already been checked. 90 percent of them were not infected with the virus. Laumann and Prime Minister Armin Laschet (CDU) see a light weather glow against the background for the first relaxation measures after the Easter holidays.

Because if it is not possible to reduce the infection rate in the next few months, economic, social and health risks of collapse. The BMI virus analysts ran through the following scenarios.

Worst case: 975 clinics currently feed their data on intensive care bed capacities into a database at the German Interdisciplinary Association for Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine (DIVI), the RKI and the German Hospital Society. According to the current status, there are around 20,000 intensive care beds in these 975 clinics. Around 8,500 of them are currently free and can be used immediately to treat corona patients. If you look at all clinics, not just those that provide their data at DIVI, Germany, according to Health Minister Spahn, has over 40,000 intensive care beds.

In crisis mode, says Spahn, the number of free beds can be increased from 8,500 to 17,500. According to BMI expertise, this number is far from sufficient. Even if the quota climbs to 24,000 free intensive care beds with respirators, a "massive overload of the health system" must be expected - and that if the number of virus recipients stagnates every nine days by the end of April. In the worst case, 80 percent of the "intensive care patients would have to be rejected by the hospitals," the BMI states. In this case, 1.2 million deaths are expected.

Stretching case: If it is possible to slow down the infection rate by mid-April, according to the analyzes, only 15 percent of intensive care patients could not be treated clinically. Only one in five Germans would become infected; the BMI estimates the death rate at 220,000. Under these conditions, the state of emergency would last for at least seven months.

“Hammer and dance” scenario: testing and isolating is the way the BMI experts favored. As a result, intensive virus control curbs the pandemic. Then a million Germans would probably become infected with the virus, and around 12,000 would die. However, there is still a risk of infection.

The BMI experts paint a gloomy picture for the economic and social consequences if the pandemic cannot be successfully combated. In their view, there is a risk of a “meltdown” for the entire system, which the pandemic will call into question. "This threatens to change the community to a completely different basic state up to anarchy," the report says.

In addition, the paper predicts far worse consequences for the local economy, worse than in the financial crisis in 2009. And here, too, the BMI analysts went through several scenarios:

Quick control: If the contact bans apply, the numbers could go down noticeably by the end of the Easter holidays. In the opinion of the BMI, this is reason enough to reopen schools and kindergartens and, at least in part, to bring parents back to work from the home office. Manufacturing companies would have severe problems in starting up operations for at least a month due to broken supply chains. At the same time, bans on general meetings and the intensive virus test series remain.

According to the forecasts, it will take two months for the companies to work again without problems. Another three months are necessary to compensate for the lost economic output. In this best case scenario, the gross national product will drop by four percent, while the industry will lose nine percent. In this case alone, the state budget would cost 80 billion euros.

Return of the virus crisis: In the second case, the BMI analysis runs through the economic consequences of a second corona wave in the coming winter. The same scenario with exit restrictions, ban on visiting old people's homes and short-term work benefits for millions of employees would repeat itself. This would have an eleven percent drop for the economy in 2020, and industry would have to cope with a 19 percent drop in sales - far worse consequences than the global financial sector crash had caused eleven years ago.

Long suffering: If the ban on contacts and curfews nationwide last until the beginning of the summer vacation in mid-July, deeper cuts are to be feared.

Abyss: According to the BMI, a "lockdown" by the end of the year would amount to an "economic collapse", the "social and political consequences of which are hard to imagine". GDP fell by 32 percent, the industry lost almost half of its sales. In this case, the Ministry of the Interior fears massive protests against the measures taken by the government: "It is likely that the treatment of the sick will be questioned" rather than accepting the country's permanent standstill.

Conclusion: The Ministry of the Interior supports the course to extend the mass tests and consequently to better identify and isolate the risk patients. They are calling for more mobile test stations and the controversial "Big Data" - digital monitoring using health code software on the cell phone, that is, virus tracking. If this path leads to success - the first data seem to confirm this - a lot would be gained. If not, the consequences would be unforeseeable.