Open Letter to the German Bundestag: Act now
This is being sent to all members of the German Bundestag. German version to follow.
I am writing to you from Endcoronavirus.org, an organisation of 1200+ scientists and volunteers dedicated to stopping the COVID-19 pandemic. Together with scientists from Harvard, MIT and international institutions, we have been closely monitoring the spread of COVID-19 since January across China, South Korea, Italy & the US.
Research from China's CDC shows that when you have X known new cases, the real number of new cases is around 12X today and 29X in two weeks (see the graph in the attached paper). This means you’re underestimating the real number of cases by a huge margin since testing is delayed. We think Germany might already have over 30,000 infections right now. In 14-24 days, many of these people will need to be hospitalised & isolated.
Attached is our COVID-19 Recommendations for Policy Makers. We urge you take this pandemic very seriously and apply these measures. We hope to speak to leaders in charge of the response in Germany and explain these concerns in more detail. Here are the critical points:
COVID-19 cases are growing exponentially and the main factor that allows this growth is connectivity between people. You must limit transportation aggressively requiring at least a 14 day quarantine for transferring from region to region. A divide and contain strategy is essential.
Recognise that many other countries are experiencing multiple local outbreaks of COVID-19 and cut unchecked connectivity with them immediately.
Prepare to test people for COVID-19 at all ports of entry into & out of the country and between provinces within the country.
China locked down Hubei with 800 official cases, but still ended up with 80,000 cases. Even if we lockdown today with an official number of 3000, we will likely end up having over 300,000 infections in Germany.
Collaborate with academic institutions, labs and companies for massive testing to identify as many cases as possible). When cases go unrecognised you will simply not get ahead of the pandemic as there will always be more unknown new cases.
Increase hospital capacity and stock of essential medical resources.
Shut down schools & universities to prevent spread. Maximize work from home.
Due to the immense growth in cases, Italy is currently at 6.6% mortality rate and we expect it to go higher in the coming weeks. Realise that Italy has a strong healthcare system. Their situation is caused not by an inherent insufficiency of the system, but failure to take early measures. If you're expecting 70% of your population to get infected, expect to treat 11 million in isolation & 2-5 million deaths depending on quality of healthcare.
Germany will also need to prepare for a 15-20% hospitalisation rate & a 10% ICU admission rate among infected people, these are the figures we’ve seen across countries. This will be very expensive & because the contagion is exponential, it will only get more expensive to prepare the longer you wait.
Containing this virus is possible. It's by getting ahead of the curve. Act strongly and act now. Prevent needless deaths.
Thank you,