COVID-19 pandemic in Germany
The COVID-19 pandemic in Germany has resulted in 38,437,756[3] confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 174,979[3] deaths.
On 27 January 2020, the first case in Germany was confirmed near Munich, Bavaria.[5] By mid February, the arising cluster of cases had been fully contained.[6] On 25 and 26 February, multiple cases related to the Italian outbreak were detected in Baden-Württemberg. A carnival event on 15 February in Heinsberg, North Rhine-Westphalia, was attended by a man identified as positive on 25 February; in the outbreak which subsequently developed from infected participants, authorities were mostly no longer able to trace the likely chains of infections.[7] On 9 March, the first two deaths in Germany were reported from Essen and Heinsberg.[8] New clusters were introduced in other regions via Heinsberg as well as via people arriving from China, Iran and Italy,[9] from where non-Germans could arrive by plane until 17–18 March. From 13 March, German states mandated school and kindergarten closures, postponed academic semesters and prohibited visits to nursing homes to protect the elderly. Two days later, borders to Austria, Denmark, France, Luxembourg and Switzerland were closed.[10]
By 22 March, curfews were imposed in six German states while other states prohibited physical contact with more than one person from outside one's household.
On 15 April 2020, Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke of "fragile intermediate success" that had been achieved in the fight against the pandemic. The same day, a first loosening of restrictions was announced,[11] continued in early May,[12] and eventually, holiday travels were allowed in cooperation with other European countries.[13] A number of state premiers pressed for faster relaxation of restrictions, putting them at odds with Merkel, who favoured a more cautious approach,[14] a pattern that repeated itself later that year.[15] Substantial local outbreaks in meat processing plants drew public attention beyond the epidemiological context to poor working conditions. By late August, infection numbers had returned to the levels of April, and a possible second wave of the pandemic was under debate.[16] By mid October, it was believed by experts to be inevitable.[17] A partial lockdown from 2 November only temporarily halted the rise in case numbers;[18] the total number of reported infections since the start of the pandemic crossed one million on 27 November.[19] A hard lockdown from 15 December made FFP2 masks or other clinical masks mandatory on public transport and in shops. Repeated lockdown extensions were mainly motivated by the appearance of the Alpha variant and other mutations. Death rates in nursing homes remained high until late January 2021[20] but dropped strongly in February, likely due to residents and workers at these facilities having been prioritised in the vaccination campaign.[21] The second wave peaked in January.[22]
In March 2021, the Alpha variant drove a third wave of infections.[23] The average age of the infected, as well as of those requiring intensive care, was much younger than in the first two waves.[22] A reform of the Infection Protection Act in late April increased federal government powers, allowing it to mandate pandemic measures in hard-hit districts;[24] in November 2021, the measures were ruled by the Federal Constitutional Court to have been legal.[25] From late April, infection numbers started to continuously decrease; the third wave was seen as broken by early May.[26] The Delta variant became dominant among the new infections by the end of June, and from early July, cases started to increase again.[27] On 20 August, the RKI assessed the country to have entered the fourth wave of the pandemic, again with most of the cases coming from the younger age groups.[28] With effect from 23 August, the so-called 3G rule gave those who were vaccinated, had recovered, or had a negative test result no older than 24 hours more freedom to visit numerous venues.[29] From mid October, infections and intensive care unit admissions started to increase again.[30] On 4 November, as almost 34,000 reported infections set a new record since the beginning of the pandemic, Health Minister Jens Spahn spoke of a "massive pandemic of the unvaccinated",[31] which was criticized by scientists for underrating the role of the vaccinated in the pandemic.[32] Unprecedentedly high infection numbers led Germany to reintroduce free coronavirus testing in November, a month after they had been phased out,[33] and to launch a booster campaign. Booster vaccinations were declared by new Health Minister Karl Lauterbach to be central to the government strategy of combating the Omicron variant.[34]
Warnings of a "massive fifth wave" driven by Omicron in December[35] proved to be no exaggeration as daily case numbers rose up to over 200,000 by mid February 2022, and remained at a high level in March. Experts considered the absence of a decrease to be due to the BA.2 subvariant of Omicron, which had ushered in the sixth wave of the pandemic, and expected more cases after the easing of pandemic measures scheduled to begin on 21 March.[36][37]
Vaccinations with the Pfizer–BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine began on 27 December 2020 (unofficially one day earlier); vaccinations with the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine, the AstraZeneca vaccine and the Janssen COVID-19 vaccine began in mid January, early February, and mid March 2021 respectively. Vaccinations with AstraZeneca were stalled on 16 March 2021 due to concerns about rare and potentially lethal side effects[38] but resumed on 19 March after the European Medicines Agency deemed the vaccine "safe and effective".[39] On 30 March, German vaccination commission STIKO recommended limiting the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine to those aged 60 or over, but revised this on 22 April to allow for use in younger ages, subject to their consent to medical advice about the risks.[40] Vaccinations accelerated in April, with a total of 15 million shots given that month. On 6 May, the AstraZeneca vaccine was made available to all adults,[41] with the Johnson & Johnson vaccine following on 10 May[42] and all others on 7 June.[43] Vaccination with AstraZeneca ceased on 1 December 2021.[44] On 3 February 2022, the Novavax COVID-19 vaccine was approved.[45] As of 25 November 2021, 68.1 per cent of the total population had completed their vaccination, with considerable regional variation across states.[46] In mid-January 2022, the RKI reported that just under 75 per cent had received at least one vaccination.[47]
Background
On 12 January 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed that a novel coronavirus was the cause of a respiratory illness in a cluster of people in Wuhan, Hubei, China, which was reported to the WHO on 31 December 2019.[48][49]
The case fatality ratio for COVID-19 is lower than SARS of 2003,[50][51] but the transmission has been significantly greater, with a significant total death toll.[50][52]
Infection Protection Act
In the implementation of federal and state guidelines to contain the COVID-19 pandemic, the Infection Protection Act (Infektionsschutzgesetz, IfSG) has played a central role. Enacted in 2000, the IfSG authorises state governments to issue regulations to control communicable diseases, and to order protective measures including quarantine, thus granting them considerable power in relation to the federal government,[53] whose primary task is to coordinate the measures taken.[54]
Pressure by state premiers repeatedly forced Chancellor Merkel to soften anti-pandemic measures.[55][15]
In March 2020, the federal government drafted a change to the IfSG to allow the federal government more power over the federal states. Among others it would allow the health ministry to prohibit border crossings, track the contacts of infected persons and enlist doctors, medicine students and other health care workers in the efforts against an infectious disease.[56] A condition for use of the additional powers is the determination of an epidemic situation of national significance (de:Epidemische Lage von nationaler Tragweite). The Bundestag made this determination on 25 March, the same day it approved the amendments to the IfSG.[57] The amendments became law on 27 March.[53] The determination was extended repeatedly, for the fourth time on 25 August 2021 for tentatively three months.[58][59] In a 11 November Bundestag debate, chancellor-in-waiting Olaf Scholz pushed for the state of emergency to end on 25 November as scheduled; in justification of this measure, which was expected to go ahead, fellow Social Democrat Dirk Wiese said that "lockdowns for the entire republic and de-facto occupational bans ... we no longer consider proportionate". On the same occasion, Scholz called for parliamentary support for a catalogue of new measures that would replace the state of emergency.[60]
On 18 November 2020, a reform of the IfSG which had been proposed by the ruling Grand coalition was passed in the Bundestag with 415 votes in favour, 236 against, and eight abstentions. The regulations of the law include a specification of the scope of measures which may be taken by individual states to combat a health emergency such as the current pandemic. The purpose of the law was to put measures that had been previously enacted by decree on a more firm legal basis. It also addressed complaints from across the political spectrum about what they saw as diminished role of the parliament. The opposition parties in parliament remained dissatisfied with the reformed law.[61][62]
A further revision of the IfSG came into force on 22 April 2021, allowing the federal government to mandate curfews from 24 April.[63]
Virus variants
The first case of what was later named the Alpha variant was confirmed by authorities on 24 December 2020. It was detected in a woman who had been travelling by plane from London to Frankfurt.[152]
On 21 January 2021, an analysis by the Berlin Charité hospital of a coronavirus sample from a patient in a recent outbreak in Garmisch-Partenkirchen was published. The report said that, contrary to initial concerns, the sample did not show a new mutation, but rather a variant of the virus that had first been detected in March 2020. Up to the time of the report, 66 patients and staff at a hospital in Germisch-Partenkirchen had tested positive for that variant.[153]
The first case in Germany of the Beta variant was confirmed by authorities on 22 January 2021 in a traveller who had arrived at Frankfurt airport from Brazil one day earlier. He showed no symptoms. Also on 22 January, the total death toll in Germany crossed the 50,000 mark, according to the Robert Koch Institute.[154][155]
On 24 April 2021, Germany banned flights from India with effect from 26 April, due to concern about the Delta variant that had emerged in that country and was suspected to be responsible for the steep rise in COVID-19 cases there. Germans and foreigners with German residence permit, among others, would be exempt upon presentation of a negative test result before entry; a 14-day mandatory quarantine would still be required. As of 23 April, there were 21 cases of infections with the variant reported in Germany.[156]
On 7 July 2021, the RKI announced that, based on data from 21 to 27 June, the Delta variant had become the dominant strain, making up 59 per cent of newly reported infections within that week.[157]
By late November 2021, several cases of the Omicron variant had been reported in Germany.[158]
After their emergence, the Alpha, Delta and Omicron variants successively went on to become the dominant strain of the coronavirus in the country.
Therapy
On 25 January 2021, the Health Ministry announced that Germany had bought 200,000 doses of experimental antibody cocktails for €400 million, to be administered at university hospitals only, and to be used only on high-risk patients at an early stage of the illness. The drugs, Bamlanivimab and REGN-COV-2, had been used on US President Donald Trump after he caught the virus in October 2020. The use of the drugs, which had not received approval by the European Medicines Agency, was permitted under a compassionate use clause.[187]
On 28 December 2021, the German government announced that it had ordered one million doses of Paxlovid. Health minister Lauterbach said he had liaised with the Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices about emergency approval for the drug, which he expected to be granted in time for the first deliveries before the end of January 2022.[188] Wholesale marketers started to receive the drug on 23 February.[189] Its uptake appeared to be quite slow in the first months, however, with one German newspaper reporting that by April it had been prescribed less than 9,000 times.[190] In a tweet on 21 May 2022, health minister Lauterbach expressed his satisfaction about new research results indicating the high efficacy of the drug, but said that more preparation was still needed to determine its "optimal use".[191]
In January 2024, it was reported that several pharmacies in Germany were being investigated on suspicion of having illegally re-sold Paxlovid which they had ordered.[192]
Impact
Economy
Germany officially entered a recession given that its economy contracted 2.2% during the first quarter of 2020.[193]
As of 1 April 2020, almost half a million companies in Germany had sent their workers on a government-subsidized short-time working scheme known as Kurzarbeit.[194][195] The German short-time work compensation scheme is similar to schemes in France and Britain.[196]
On 8 April, Germany reverted a travel ban for seasonal agricultural workers, allowing 80,000 Eastern Europeans to enter between April and May to harvest seasonal foods.[197]
In a press release from 29 April, the Federal Government predicted that gross domestic product to decline by 6.3 per cent in 2020,
with the sharpest drop in economic output, and the peak in Kurzarbeit short-time working, occurring in the second quarter.[198]
On 22 May, in an article published in the Süddeutsche Zeitung, the German Council of Economic Experts stated its views on the design of the planned coronavirus recovery package. In particular, it weighed in on the debate about whether the recovery package should include a higher cash incentive for buying electric cars, a plan which the Merkel government had favoured.[199] The Council recommended against any sector specific aid measures, and advocated focusing on investments in education and infrastructure, lowering the cost of energy, and allowing companies to balance losses with gains from previous and expected gains for future years.[200]
On 3 June, the Bundesagentur für Arbeit (BA) announced that the jobless figure in Germany had risen in May to 2.813 million, a year-on-year increase of 577,000, bringing the unemployment rate to 6.1 per cent. In his analysis, BA director Detlef Scheele stated that even though the coronavirus crisis had hit the labour market with unprecedented severity, it was coping reasonably well in his opinion.[201]
According to the Federal Statistical Office, exports dropped in April by 31 per cent compared to the previous year, which was unprecedented since 1950, when trade balance statistics began to be collected.[202]
In late August 2020, the Federal Statistical Office reported a decrease in gross domestic product of 9.7% in the second quarter of 2020 as compared to the first. This was attributed to the collapse in exports as well as health protection measures during the pandemic; the latter had shut down whole industries such as those related to conferences and concerts. Economists expected a rebounding of the economy in the third quarter due to the easing of coronavirus related restrictions, but saw the possibility of a second wave of infections hanging as a threat over those predictions.[203]
Based on preliminary calculations, the Federal Statistical Office reported on 14 January 2021 that the gross domestic product had shrunk by 5.0 per cent in 2020 as compared to the previous year. While price-adjusted private consumption had shrunk by a record 6.0 per cent, this had been partly offset by a government consumption increase of 3.4 per cent, in which the purchase of protective equipment and hospital costs had played a role. For the first time since 2011, Germany recorded a budget deficit, which at 4.8 per cent was second only to that of 1995, when the debts of the Treuhand were transferred to the federal budget.[204]
On 26 March, the Federal Constitutional Court stopped a German law for the roll-out of an aid package totalling €750 billion that had been agreed by the European Council in summer 2020. The legal challenge had been mounted by Bernd Lucke and others, who rejected the repayment of debts in the name of all EU countries jointly. The European Commission expressed optimism that the package could still be rolled out from the end of June 2021 as planned.[205] On 24 April, the court rejected the legal challenge. The main court proceedings were still pending.[206]
According to a study by the Cologne Institute for Economic Research whose results were published on 20 April 2021, private consumption had dropped in 2020 by 6.1 per cent, the largest amount in 70 years, translating to €1,250 per capita. The drop was ascribed to an increased savings ratio and lower incomes during the pandemic.[207]
Introduction of mask requirements
On 31 March, city-county Jena, Thuringia, was the first large German city to introduce an obligation to wear masks, or makeshift masks including scarves, in supermarkets, public transport, and buildings with public traffic, from 6 April, very successfully. On 2 April, the Robert Koch Institute, the federal epidemic authority, changed its previous recommendation that only people with symptoms should wear masks to also include people without symptoms.[208][209] The district of Nordhausen, Thuringia, followed the example of Jena, with effect from 14 April,[210] the city of Erfurt on 22 April.[211]
German chancellor Merkel and state governors first gave "strong advice" to wear face masks in public starting 20 April. Saxony made it mandatory from that day, Saxony-Anhalt followed starting 23 April and (the rest of) Thurinigia starting 24 April, then finally the governors agreed to make it mandatory, so most other states followed starting 27 April, except Schleswig-Holstein, which introduced requirements starting 29 April, and Berlin, where shops were initially excluded but were then included starting 29 April.[212]
As of 24 April, most German states had no penalties for not wearing a mask. However, not wearing masks in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania can result in a €25 fine, in Hesse a €50 fine, and in Bavaria, not wearing a face mask while on public transportation or in a shop can result in a €150 fine for first-time offenders. There are exceptions for mask wearing for young children, severely disabled persons, or with those with respiratory diseases such as asthma.[213]