Will Germany's effective Covid strategy work again as it enters a second wave? | Karl Lauterbach

The first wave taught us that if politicians and scientists work together, they have more chance of beating this virus

• Karl Lauterbach is an SPD member of the Bundestag and professor of health economics and clinical epidemiology
• Coronavirus - latest updates

Germany came through the first wave of the pandemic reasonably well, compared to many other European countries. Intensive care capacity was at no point overburdened. There was no triage. When necessary, therapies such as ECMO lung replacement were available. Still, a total of 9,867 people have died, 367,419 have been infected and 769 Covid-19 patients are currently in intensive care. As for the second wave, the situation so far is also better in comparison with other countries in Europe. What explains the relative success in coping with the first wave? And can Germany achieve this a second time?

I believe that we benefited greatly from three factors in the first wave. The first was sheer luck, which enabled people to act early. With the disturbing and tragic images of outbreaks in northern Italy and in countries that were a few weeks ahead of us, the German population was already very alarmed by the time we registered a first significant increase in cases. The mood meant that the mobility of the population had already severely decreased before we even decided on and announced the initial political measures. Evaluations of mobility using phone data clearly prove this.