COVID-19: LESSONS FROM GERMANY

After almost 5 weeks of Shelter in place/Lockdown the overall rate of infections of Covid19 and death rate in Germany has been lower than initial fears. As of today, about 130.000 infections were counted in Germany and 3.194 people died. Although each death is a death too many, it is still considerably lower than initial forecasts and well within the capacity of German hospitals. Average number of new infections has also slowed significantly. Moreover, according to official statistics the average age of deaths is about 82 years with about 95% of people affected being over 65 years. The government has started discussing how this group of people can be protected while the rest of Germany can gradually go back to work. I believe they will soon get back to a new normal. Is this something that we in USA can learn from? Is this something that the world can learn from? Or, is it too early to hypothesize?