The way I understood it those "test drive-ins" in Germany aren't like in South Korea, you can only get tested there when you've been in direct contact with a confirmed Covid-19-infected person or been to a designated high risk zone, e.g. see here:
https://www.merkur.de/lokales/bad-toelz/bad-toelz-ort28297/corona-toelzer-gesundheitsamt-eroeffnet-drive-in-test-station-13608309.html
Maybe I misunderstand things, but my impression was that South Korea does testing on a much more extensive scale.
Re Merkel's speech: Of course her recommendations to citizens were sensible. However, imo it also was just her usual bs where she's dodging her own responsibility (nothing about what she and her government actually intend to do), lecturing citizens instead like we're all stupid children. But I'll stop here, would be ill-advised to write more.
Re solidarity: Within Europe it hasn't been much in evidence so far, unfortunately. I think people in Germany underestimate the mood in Italy, the fallout from this crisis for the future of the EU might be significant.
That's fraught with dangers as well though, if there isn't proper testing. I remember the disaster with the swine flu vaccine which caused serious damage (e.g. a terrible condition like narcolepsy) in hundreds of vaccinated teenagers (iirc especially in Scandinavia where there was mass vaccination for swine flu). Would be terrible, if something like that happened again on a greater scale.

Here you go, some expert advice I thought you might enjoy: https://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/health/coronavirus-are-you-judging-others-enough-20200320194742

That's totally true BUT :
- if you have Covid you are contagious AFAIK 2-6 days before the first symptoms.
- so wearing a mask doesn't protect you, it protects the other.

I think I've caught Covid a few days ago, cannot be sure : I cough a little, I'm tired, got some muscle pain...
I was in contact (not so near) with 2 people that we now are sure have the disease, and closely with a friend who a week ago (when it was certain that it was spreading fast in France) was sure it's was just 'little flu" and still insisted to shake hands (he didn't shake mines) but put his hands around my wife shoulders while showing his new born grand son pictures.

I don't have any news from him since yesterday.

I wear a mask - I have a really old stock - every time I'm out since monday. I hope you understand that I don't mean to protect myself (think it's too late), but in the hope that the masks are not too old and can protect someone if I cannot refrain coughing while outside shopping (need to eat, you know !)

Sorry, I'm not sure to understand this sentence. That's good news, if those old people can survive the 7-9th day of the disease. For that, we need reanimation beds, intubators (spelling ?) . we don't have the same ratio in each countries, more on this beside.
It's been a week that Italy hospitals have to make choices for who get access to beds... And so who can have a chance to live or not.
France do that at least from yesterday.
I know it's "common" for hospitals/urgences to make such choices. Just it's now every day and for a lot of people. I think the worse case scenario is this one : 1% of the world population would die (after 50-70% of the population will get infected)
I think the scenario that will happen is this one (in one year from now) :
around 1% in the poorest countries
0.2 % in USA
0.01% to 0.05% in Asian countries with good participations of the population to the barrier gestures (sneezing in elbow, wearing masks, staying inside when asked to...) and some european countries.
0.1% in other european countries.
Why so much ? in the next 2-3 months there will likely a lot less death than those figures in western countries. But we won't be able to stop the spreading worldwide, and we will make the same mistakes this summer : lot of people traveling to foreign countries, some will come back for a second round this autumn. Can we stop the economy a second time in a year ? I don't think we will. So the UK solution will arise again (let the disease spread). May be more rationnal in 6 months (we may have a cure, not sure for a vaccine so soon).

That means tenth of thousands death in most countries and even millions in some.

Political effect is hard to anticipate, but certainly disastrous in countries where people will think (being right or not) that their government failed to do the right things in the right time.

Here in France there where voices (very few) to say by the end of january, more last days of february, that the situation was dangerous, and clearly and scientifically anticipated the today situation - knowing how hard it already was for our health care system.

There are (more than) rumors that the government knew what was coming, and did nothing (to save some 0.1% of GNB)
We will lose at least 2 points of GNB.

I've just seen that you are from Germany.
I don't know if you know what the big difference is between France/Italy and Germany :

That's 3 countries with more or less the same population count (70 - 60 and 90 millions if I'm not totally wrong)
But : France/Italy : around 7 000 beds for reanimations each - Germany : 25 000

Rate of death (death/known diseased cases) : 0.1% in Germany - your beds are OK, 1% in France, counting up, more than 7 % I think in Italy, counting up.

Maybe Germany will maintain less than 0.5% rate of death (even 25 000 beds may prove to be not enough, there are other diseases than Covid !).
France will rise to more than 5% in a few days. That could have been prevented in 2 ways in France :
1 - we cut in health budget for the last 30 years (it cost soooo much... Question : how much the difference in the rate of death between Germany / France will cost us ? Cynical : how much will that make us gain : less old people to cure, pay for retirement... ?)

2 - I had access to some conferences with and for french Ph.D, last one with the heads of the 2 french hospitals who took care of the first waves of covid patients.
What they said 4th march and what they said 10th march is not the same. Really not the same.

We are the 20th march. We have heroes in our hospitals. No less. It's a shame they were not listened to by the 10th march at least.
We lost 1 week (1st measure of confinement on the 17th march) . That means the peak of infected people at the same time will be about 3-4 times higher than it could have been. That means we are loosing people that could have been saved.
How much...
I don't know.

Of course, all above is just the thoughs I have reading and listening what I can about the disease, and knowing (not so badly) economics and our politicians in France.

Could you elaborate on that? Do you mean they were overwhelmed by a sudden influx of severe cases?
Regarding Germany: I haven't yet seen a good explanation why death rate so far seems to be lower, imo it's most likely that Germany is simply at an earlier stage of the epidemic than Italy, Spain and probably France as well.

Sorry for the formatting....post messed up and I had to do it this way.....post bits are numbered and match reply bits.....that said:
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1. You're likely right.....although(at least in my case) I worry less about democracy specifically surviving and more about freedoms of ANY country/system possibly being eroded further(even for several months) out of fear(by govt officials or the people of those countries).

Though yes, it's likely(and hopefully) just worrying too much on my/other people's part/

2. It's not just "slower life", but essentially near everything is shut down(except food and medicine places) for some countries/people.....plus some countries govts have hinted they would lcok things down again in the future(for more months) if need be.

Now I agree 100% many can weather out ONE such lock down or so....but if govts/etc try to impose this too many times or too severely some(not all) people are likely going to get "upset"(to put it mildly).

3. That, and ALSO: pollution in some areas is going down, resources(like electricity/gasoline/etc) are being used more wisely, businesses in some countries(and even people) are keeping things more clean than normal.....so there's a good number of positives to this at the very least.

4. I agree....some exceptions should be made(not just for getting food/medicine, though) to give people some inkling/sense of freedom and keep up morale.
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True, but I think(at least for some) it's more about finding someone to blame(if those people did something that made the situation worse through negligence or even[albeit less possible]intentionally).....we humans are like that, it seems.....always have to blame someone for everything if we can(to feel less powerless & that something is being done, etc).

Right now it seems the "common man(and woman)" is blaming MOST politicians(that fumble this or worse) across the board, regardless of party affiliation(though of course a few are still doing that, sadly). To me that is somewhat better than how it used to be, at any rate.

This is a shot in the dark, but somebody sent a link about different blood groups reacting differently to the virus. Some blood groups are more prevalent among certain populations and so on.

I'm not qualified to make a guess in any way and it's probably laughably wrong, just speculating out of curiosity.

I think the bit about blood groups is possibly correct, I read that as well, here:
https://www.gnxp.com/WordPress/2020/03/17/blood-group-a-at-greater-risk-from-covid-19/
But I don't think that can explain the drastic difference between Italy, Spain, France (including the region near the German border) and Germany, blood group distributions aren't that different in Europe (look at the maps in the linked article).

From that page:

"They might have been advised to but if they can just work in the house then it wasn’t a proper job to begin with, was it?"

and

"Someone with the coronavirus could have run through that park licking the fences."
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If it's not a parody(like the Onion/etc) it seems like it.....made me lol a bunch and lifted my spirits(and my dad's as well when I showed it to him)....thanks for that. :)


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You sound like a very caring person.....thank you for all you do to help others.

iirc there was research for a vaccine on SARS (which, as I understand it, was caused by a coronavirus similar to the one causing Covid-19), but that was quickly given up, once the 2002 SARS outbreak had been contained...unfortunate, since it might have helped with creating a vaccine against Covid-19.
Coronaviruses don't seem to be understood that well in general:
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2020/03/biography-new-coronavirus/608338/

Yes, the mash is definitely a parody, but well worth reading.
You should definitely ignore that "research" about blood groups, it was crap that will never be submitted for peer review because it would be ripped apart by any decent scientist or statistician, it wasn't research by any standard (except "crap").

So it seems. :)

Tbh I find the current methods of research to be too hindered by posturing(between scientists and their "cliques") and other things.....also if the science(in genera) is sound enough and the results help people, to me that is somewhat more important.

My point was - this science was unsound. Any basic test debunks it.

It is a biological weapon no doubt.