'' ... During Wednesday’s news conference, the chancellor thanked citizens for obeying strict social distancing rules and living with so many restrictions, stressing that Germany’s relative success in combating the virus was because of their cooperation.
“The curve has become flatter,” Ms Merkel said, referring to the number of new daily infections.
But she cautioned against a false sense of security, saying the achievements could quickly be reversed.
“We don’t have much leeway,” she said.
“If we now allow more public life, in small steps, then it is very important that we can trace infections chains even better,” she said. “That must be our aim: to trace every infection chain.”
To that end, she said, Germany’s testing capacities would be increased. The country is currently capable of testing 100,000 people a day, more than any other country in Europe.
Earlier Wednesday, the European Commission presented a road map for countries in the 27-country bloc planning their own exit strategies. Chief among its recommendations is a German-style testing regime that allows for the tracing and quarantining of those who are sick while also slowly allowing those who are not to go back to some activities.
The chancellor went into detailed explanations of the science behind her own plan.
A key variable the government was looking at, she said, is the so-called reproduction factor of the virus — the number of people an infected person passes the virus on to.
That factor currently stands at about 1, she said, meaning that one person gets infected by every newly infected person. If that factor rose even to 1.1, the German health care system would reach capacity by October, she said.
If it were allowed to rise to 1.2 — so out of five infected people one infects not one but two additional people — that limit is reached by July.
“With 1.3,” Ms. Merkel continued, “we have reached the limit of our health care system by June.”
“So you can see how small our leeway is,” she said, “the entire development rests on having a number of infections that we can keep track of and trace.” ''
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Shorn of any bravado, her announcement seemed again to make Germany, Europe’s biggest economy, a de facto leader on the Continent and something of an example for Western nations
The chancellor, a physicist by training, was typically restrained and focused on the science as she announced the government’s cautious step-by-step plan, for which she had won the agreement of regional leaders in Germany’s diffuse federal system.
Shorn of any bravado, her announcement seemed again to make Germany, Europe’s biggest economy, a de facto leader on the Continent and something of an example for Western nations looking to navigate the tricky course of rebooting economic activity and fighting the virus.
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“We have achieved something,” Ms. Merkel said at a news conference, “something that by no means was a given at the start — namely that our doctors and carers, all those in the medical field, in the hospitals, were not overwhelmed.”
But she added: “What we’ve achieved is an interim success — no more, no less. And I stress that it is a fragile interim success.”
An economic lockdown will remain largely in place for an additional 20 days, Ms. Merkel cautioned, and strict social distancing rules will remain in force.
But some shops will be allowed to reopen beginning next week — although only those with the necessary protections in place to allow strict social distancing to continue, she said.
Older students might be allowed back to school in May but that will be contingent on a radically changed setup involving small groups, face masks and social distancing rules for school buses.''
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