Lockdown is overestimated, Germany changes course?

Lockdown is overestimated, Germany changes course?

"They would probably answer to that spooky forecaster that Slovenia is a disciplined nation that will know how to organize adequate anti-epidemic measures and that it is completely impossible for such evil to befall the country," the text of Jutarnji list points out.

Slovenia has indeed introduced a strict partial lockdown, but it still has more than 1.160 deaths per million inhabitants. Belgium too. Very strict measures did not help Italy, Peru and Spain, which are also among the 10 countries hardest hit by the number of deaths from coronavirus.

If radical measures work, how is it possible that Belgium, for example, has about twice as many deaths as Sweden, and how is it possible that all of a sudden it is a country that many were appalled for "letting old people die", but at the moment, according to the number of deaths per million inhabitants, it is in a better position than Croatia?

Swedes still do not wear masks today, while cafes and restaurants are open; they implement measures they believe are epidemiologically effective and acknowledge that in the first wave they misjudged how to protect the elderly in old people's homes. The answers are not so simple, Jutarnji writes and states that excessive simplification produces a number of other risks, because one day the victims of the pandemic will be joined by all those who died due to strict anti-epidemiological measures, and thus did not receive timely medical service due to a disease unrelated to coronavirus.

So, it can be assumed that those countries with a strict lockdown will fare very badly in that summation. Then, there is the problem, it is stated, that the strictest lockdown of the country introduces a spiral of fear and even stricter measures. Politicians think that they are playing it safe if they tighten the measures, because they estimate that no one will object to too many deaths in that case tomorrow.

How to recognize then where is the line between necessary and effective measures and excessive ones? First, one should know that lockdown is overestimated when it comes to slowing down the speed of infection, points out the author of the text in Jutarnji list.

"Did you know that the travel ban, according to scientific research, has the effect of slowing down the infection by three percent?", the paper continues, posing a new question: "However, who in Europe can ignore the fact that a large, powerful and exemplary Germany is paving the way of radical measures?"

Germany is currently "solid" when it comes to the number of deaths per million inhabitants, but some German provinces are rapidly approaching the incidence of Croatia - their hospital capacity is filling and the number of deaths is growing.

That is why Germany is starting to talk about a turnaround in epidemiological policy, but it is not yet known what the turnaround could lead to. It can hardly be more rigorous than what they are already doing, without devastating what they live on - the export industry. It is also significant that last week Germany established a special "task force" for the protection of the elderly. Will it be a good turnaround, the Croatian paper wondered.