Germany Headed for Key Medical Kit Shortages, Experts Tell Paper

(Bloomberg) --

Germany may run into a shortage of critical medical equipment and hospital capacity even though the country has done relatively well in combating the coronavirus so far, scientists and politicians warned Sunday.

“We can’t rule out we’ll have more patients in need of ventilators than equipment,” Lothar Wieler, president of the public health group, Robert Koch Institute, told German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung. The country “clearly has to acknowledge that capacities might not suffice,” he said.

Wieler has turned more wary of the virus’s spread compared with his statement from about a week ago, when he said he was “optimistic” because trends show the growth in new cases is flattening out in Germany.

Leading politicians in Europe’s biggest economy struck a similar tone. The country needs a strategy to increase capacity and boost central planning because there aren’t enough protection gear, testing or ventilators, the Social Democratic Party’s health-care expert and member of parliament, Bar­bel Bas, told the same newspaper on Sunday.

Germany needs to be able to make millions of respiratory masks, the Green Party’s co-head Annalena Baerbock said.

Relatively Low

The number of Covid-19-related deaths have been relatively low in the country compared with some other European nations. Cases rose to about 57,695 on Saturday, with 433 deaths. Spain has had more than 6,500 fatalities and Italy’s topped 10,000.

Germany has progressively tightened restrictions on residents in the past two weeks, beginning with limits on large meetings, border controls and school closures. It now bans gatherings of more than two people.

Chancellor Angela Merkel said lockdown rules are unlikely to be relaxed to protect the health-care system. Her chief of staff, Helge Braun, separately told newspaper Der Tagesspiegel on Saturday current measures will largely be in place until April 20.

“The number of new infections doesn’t give reason to ease the rules,” Merkel said in her weekly podcast Saturday.

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.