{"id":2603,"date":"2020-04-25T01:42:56","date_gmt":"2020-04-25T01:42:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=2603"},"modified":"2020-04-25T01:42:56","modified_gmt":"2020-04-25T01:42:56","slug":"why-france-has-4-times-as-many-coronavirus-deaths-as-germany","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=2603","title":{"rendered":"Why France has 4 times as many coronavirus deaths as Germany"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\n\n“France and Germany, Europe\u2019s two most powerful countries, have been hit hard by the coronavirus<\/a>, with each approaching 150,000 confirmed cases. But as of April 17, France has near 18,000 dead from the infection<\/a>, while Germany\u2019s death toll has passed 4,000<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Which raises the question: How did two similarly sized countries, located right next to each other and with comparable levels of wealth and resources, end up with such starkly different outcomes?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The answer has a lot to do with how their respective governments responded to the crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

France<\/a> had the continent\u2019s first confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus, but the French government failed for weeks to take decisive action to impose strict social distancing measures or promote large-scale testing. Germany<\/a>, on the other hand, immediately began aggressively testing and tracking people with symptoms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, France is under lockdown and has just extended it until at least May 11. Meanwhile, Germany plans to reopen part of its economy<\/a> next week.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Germany isn\u2019t out of the woods yet. But it\u2019s in a better position than most because it had good fortune and the good sense to start testing early and often.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

France, on the other hand, had none of that.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“February came and went with little action. Health officials advised citizens to wash their hands, keep a safe distance from others, cover their mouths when sneezing, and stay away from retirement homes. And even as Macron held video conference calls<\/a> on the virus and inspected hospitals and clinics to see how his country was coping, few concrete actions were taken to impose strict social distancing measures or promote large-scale testing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact, in early March, the government still allowed gatherings of up to 1,000 people to proceed<\/a>. Macron, for his part, attended a theater performance on March 6<\/a>, partly to show that life could continue unperturbed. He also visited a retirement home<\/a> that same day, even as the number of coronavirus infections in the country<\/a> was at least doubling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To make matters worse, France couldn\u2019t get a clear picture of the growing problem due to a lack of tests. As Politico reported<\/a> last week, the country doesn\u2019t manufacture its own testing kits, but rather \u201crelies on China for their main components.\u201d With China paralyzed by its coronavirus outbreak at the time, France was unable to quickly get more tests. That severely limited the country\u2019s ability to do widespread testing early on, which public health experts say is critical to slowing an outbreak<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Macron, in effect, seemed to be sleepwalking toward disaster.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.vox.com\/2020\/4\/17\/21223915\/coronavirus-germany-france-cases-death-rate<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“France and Germany, Europe\u2019s two most powerful countries, have been hit hard by the coronavirus, with each approaching 150,000 confirmed cases. But as of April 17, France has near 18,000 dead from the infection, while Germany\u2019s death toll has passed 4,000.
\nWhich raises the question: How did two similarly sized countries, located right next to each other and with comparable levels of wealth and resources, end up with such starkly different outcomes?<\/p>\n

The answer has a lot to do with how their respective governments responded to the crisis.<\/p>\n

France had the continent\u2019s first confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus, but the French government failed for weeks to take decisive action to impose strict social distancing measures or promote large-scale testing. Germany, on the other hand, immediately began aggressively testing and tracking people with symptoms.<\/p>\n

Now, France is under lockdown and has just extended it until at least May 11. Meanwhile, Germany plans to reopen part of its economy next week.”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“Germany isn\u2019t out of the woods yet. But it\u2019s in a better position than most because it had good fortune and the good sense to start testing early and often.<\/p>\n

France, on the other hand, had none of that.”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“February came and went with little action. Health officials advised citizens to wash their hands, keep a safe distance from others, cover their mouths when sneezing, and stay away from retirement homes. And even as Macron held video conference calls on the virus and inspected hospitals and clinics to see how his country was coping, few concrete actions were taken to impose strict social distancing measures or promote large-scale testing.<\/p>\n

In fact, in early March, the government still allowed gatherings of up to 1,000 people to proceed. Macron, for his part, attended a theater performance on March 6, partly to show that life could continue unperturbed. He also visited a retirement home that same day, even as the number of coronavirus infections in the country was at least doubling.<\/p>\n

To make matters worse, France couldn\u2019t get a clear picture of the growing problem due to a lack of tests. As Politico reported last week, the country doesn\u2019t manufacture its own testing kits, but rather \u201crelies on China for their main components.\u201d With China paralyzed by its coronavirus outbreak at the time, France was unable to quickly get more tests. That severely limited the country\u2019s ability to do widespread testing early on, which public health experts say is critical to slowing an outbreak.<\/p>\n

Macron, in effect, seemed to be sleepwalking toward disaster.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[588,409,483,728,414,727],"class_list":["post-2603","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-share","tag-corona","tag-coronavirus","tag-covid-19","tag-europe","tag-france","tag-germany"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2603"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2603\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2604,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2603\/revisions\/2604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}