The media repeatedly mentioned that the mortality rate of corona infected people in Germany is very low: 149 deaths have occurred to date with around 31,545 infected people, which is a share of 0.4% (as of March 25, according to the Robert Koch Institute, RKI). This rate is 9.5% in Italy, 5.7% in the Netherlands, 5.2% in the UK and 4.7% worldwide.
Nobody really understands why this is the case but there are various explanations from experts. On one hand, tests were carried out differently in different countries. A relatively large number of tests have been carried out in Germany, so that the so-called “dark figure”, i.e. the number of infections not recorded, is lower than in other countries. Age also plays an important role. On average, Italian patients are 63 years old and in Germany they are 47 years old.
The number of deaths also increases when health care reaches its capacity limit, which is far from the case in Germany. However, Germany is still at the beginning of the epidemic, said the RKI head Lothar Wieler in a press conference on 25th of March. “It is still completely open how it will develop; we have only just started to fight Corona.”
tun032103
Impressionen von der neuen Fieberamblanz des Landkreises Tübingen. Achtung: Termine nur über den Hausarzt! Foto: tünews INTERNATIONAL; Mostafa Elyasian, 24.3.2020
