Germany: signs exponential growth curve of new infections levelling off for first time // German hackathon to develop software for solving coronavirus-related problems
In Germany,
there were signs that the exponential upwards curve in new coronavirus
infections is levelling off for the first time due to the strict social
distancing measures in force, the head of the country’s public health institute
said on Monday.
However, Lothar
Wieler, the president of the Robert Koch Institute, urged caution, saying many
health authorities had not yet submitted their data from the weekend. “I will
only be able to confirm this trend definitively on Wednesday,” he said. But he
said he remained optimistic. Germany has closed all
its schools, and on Sunday ruled that no more than two people can gather at
once, except for families or people sharing a household.
Wieler said that
current data on Germany´s Covid 19 cases indicates that the average age of
those infected is 45, the average age of those who have died is 82. Fifty-seven
per cent of those with confirmed infections have so far been men, 43% are
women. Of the symptoms people have experienced, the most common is coughing
(55%) and fever (40%).
In his daily briefing,
which has just ended, he appealed to German medical students to volunteer in
the increasing effort to track all new cases, which he said continued to be an
important part in the fight against the virus. A nationwide
collection data point called Cosmos, which is gathering data on how the illness
is being fought, shows a considerable increase in awareness of the virus, but
still a considerable gap between awareness and behaviour, he said. Mobile phone
data monitored anonymously at the weekend, of 30 million mobile phone users,
showed that people have considerably reduced their mobility, but still not as
much as was necessary, he said.
Keeping a distance, regular hand washing and
sneezing or coughing into the elbow still remained the most effective ways to
avoid the spread of coronavirus, he added. “Keeping your distance is the order
of the day,” he said. There are about 24,859
cases of coronavirus in Germany. There have so far been 97 reported deaths.
Wieler responded to
reports that Germany was not being upfront with the number of deaths owing to
the fact the figure is relatively low compared with other countries. He
confirmed that in Germany anyone who has died having been diagnosed with
coronavirus is registered as having died from the virus, even if they had other
illnesses, or medical complications.
Meanwhile, Angela
Merkel, who has been quarantined at home since yesterday after a doctor who
administered a vaccine to her was tested positive for the virus, reportedly
dialled in via telephone to the cabinet meeting of her government this morning.
Tens of thousands of
German hackers have gathered for a mass hackathon to develop software ideas for
solving coronavirus related problems. For 48 hours 42,000
hackers, 27,000 of whom were active, brainstormed over 1500 projects, the
German magazine Der Spiegel reported. Gathered from seven
organisations, such as Prototypefund,
and Code4Germany the group has
formed the initiative #wirvsvirus (us against the virus). They have earned the
patronage of the German government, which has said it will offer financial
support to the most promising ideas.
The challenges include
finding solutions for everything from virus tracking, to increasing
communication between hospitals, how to distribute food to the homeless and
helping farmers find people to bring in the harvest. Stefanie Weise, one of
the hackers, whose parents are among those in the risk category, and says she
has witnessed first hand the grave inefficiencies in the German health system,
told Der Spiegel: “I`m trying to turn my anger into energy”. The hackathon
concluded in a party on YouTube and Slack. A jury will decide which of the projects
will be supported...
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2020/mar/23/coronavirus-live-updates-uk-us-italy-germany-europe-outbreak-cases-meetings-bans-update-latest-news?page=with:block-5e7898e28f08dcc95cc216e9#block-5e7898e28f08dcc95cc216e9
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