Austria puts unvaccinated into lockdown

It seems to me that people who won't be vaccinated (except obviously medical exemptions) are thinking only about themselves and their personal wants and not about the wellbeing of society as a whole.

Vaccination is indeed for the benefit of the whole of society as well as for the benefit of the individual. I dread to think where we’d be now if these vaccines hadn’t been produced. The number of dead would have been astronomical, and it’s high enough now. Thank goodness for the vaccinations and for the millions of people who have had the good sense to get themselves vaccinated.

From the Telegraph this morning:

“Germany's acting health minister Jens Spahn has issued his strongest warning yet to the country's vaccine holdouts as Europe's largest economy desperately tries to avoid another lockdown.

"Probably by the end of this winter, as is sometimes cynically said, pretty much everyone in Germany will be vaccinated, cured or dead," Mr Spahn said, blaming "the very contagious Delta variant".

"That is why we so urgently recommend vaccination," he added.

Speaking at a news conference this morning amidst an increasingly devastating wave of infections, Mr Spahn said that only "social distancing and political resolve" can break the fourth wave.

Germany is facing the reintroduction of coronavirus restrictions as cases begin to rise steeply. Germany's vaccination uptake remains relatively low, with just 68 per cent of the population fully inoculated.”

My understanding of the different situations in Austria and Germany compared to the UK is that our booster programme has been more successful and we have a higher percentage who’ve had a booster than in other countries. I did read the figures this morning but can’t find then now! Rates of those over 12 double jabbed are similar, it’s the rates of boosters that vary quite considerably so in the UK we have more people with enhanced protection and only 6% of NHS beds are for Covid patients.

I do hope I’ve not over simplified things, I’m struggling a bit to get my head around the figures at the moment, so many different charts!

This is not a good place to be with winter approaching, and it explains why England dropped all restrictions in July. An important point I feel.

While many countries are facing their first major wave of the Delta variant against a backdrop of waning immunity and cold weather, England built up a wall of resistance to Covid in the mild summer and autumn months, which has now been fortified by twelve million booster shots.

This was always the plan, a fact some Government critics conveniently seem to have forgotten.

Be careful when making assumptions - to date Germany has had 98,908 deaths compared with 143,698 in the UK. They have had 5, 169,657 infections compared with 9,675,058 in the UK. Their infection rate is still lower than it is in the UK. This for a country which has 18million more population.
Their vaccination rate is lower at the moment, but with typical German efficiency they will sort that out. I would bet that in 6 months time they will still compare favourably with this country- we are by no means out of the woods yet, and the scientists are repeatedly saying that they don’t know what will happen over the winter, although they hope we won’t be as badly hit as elsewhere. I don’t want any more deaths anywhere, but saying that the UK is doing well just isn’t true, as we are the fifth highest impacted country in the whole of the world.

Interested in where you get the fifth highest impacted country in the whole of the world stat from Casdon.

According to Worldometer, we're 18th in cases per million and 30th in deaths per million. At present, according to Our World in Data, we have the 18th highest daily infection rate.

None of it is good, but not as bad as your data seems to suggest.

Key figures for the most impacted countries worldwide
as of November 18, 2021Total infectionsActive infectionsDeathsRecoveries
World255,772,10219,455,3525,139,858231,176,892
USA48,287,9259,239,157787,98438,260,784
India34,478,517128,762464,62333,885,132
Brazil21,977,661170,863611,89821,194,900
UK9,675,0581,587,711143,3607,943,987
Russia9,182,5381,040,618259,0847,882,836
Turkey8,480,986436,57774,2027,970,207
France7,330,958184,203118,3217,028,434
Iran6,057,893195,181128,5315,734,181
Argentina5,310,33418,495116,3135,175,526
Germany5,169,657506,54998,9084,564,200
It was from Statista - Facts and Figures. Sorry it’s jumped about a bit when I copied it.

Thanks Casdon.

Looks like its absolute numbers, I was looking at rates.

Both ways are valid, of course.

That’s it I think Alegrias1. However you look at it though, Germany has fared better than the UK so far on every aspect apart from the vaccination rate, I find it frustrating when people post sensationalist headlines which hide the truth.

Perhaps we should be comparing the percentages of vaccine hesitancy between different countries, as I believe it’s a relatively low figure here.

I agree with Urmstongran that our government was sensible in opening up the country in the summer to allow natural immunity to build up alongside the vaccines.

The latest news is that all adults here are to be offered a booster over the coming weeks which should help enormously as winter sets in.

Shall we make a date to revisit this in 6 months Jennifer Eccles, we should know by then if the UK approach has prevented more deaths than the European approach?