Poorly prepared for the pandemic
In Germany there is a lack of central public he alth care structures, such as systematic data collection and uniform reporting software. In view of the Covid crisis, this has proven to be a weak point.
Germany came through the Covid 19 pandemic comparatively well for many months. People around the world admired the country, its relatively low number of cases and its apparently efficient crisis management. The fact that the willingness to follow the AHA+L rules was comparatively strong in the early phase of the epidemic certainly contributed to this. Virus mutants were not yet an issue and the infection process was not yet as diffuse as it is today; All of this coupled with consistent communication from politicians made it easier to control the pandemic. But now, over a year later, the situation has changed, and not for the better. The federal and state governments are increasingly at odds about the right steps to take, and societal measures to combat the pandemic appear increasingly contradictory and difficult for the population to understand.
There are certainly many reasons for this, but one of them is obviously the lack of reliable data. One year after the beginning of the crisis, there is still hardly any systematic data at population level that reflects the effects of the various measures, what differences there are between age groups, how many unreported cases are infected and much more. For a long time, virus samples were only sporadically sequenced in Germany; It was not until mid-January 2021 that the federal government ordered five to ten percent of the positive samples to be subjected to a genetic test in order to be able to track the spread of circulating virus variants. And the DIVI intensive care register, which continuously documents the intensive care treatment capacities in Germany, began collecting data no earlier than in March 2020. The list could be continued, and it mainly affects an area that is systematically weak in Germany: "Public He alth", as public he alth care is usually called today.
The interdisciplinary department deals with social initiatives to prevent diseases and promote he alth. To do this, it takes everything into account that is important for maintaining and improving the he alth of the population: social, societal and economic factors as well as physical, chemical and biological ones. Shaping the he althcare system, providing medical and social services or protecting citizens from he alth risks – all of this falls under public he alth. It thus considers the social, he alth and social system holistically …
