独、ウイルス対策で韓国手本に　検査数１日２０万件目指す

【ベルリンＡＦＰ＝時事】ドイツは新型コロナウイルスの感染拡大を阻止するため、大規模な検査と隔離措置に懸けようとしている。感染の拡大速度に歯止めをかけることに成功し、世界から注目されている韓国の戦略にならう形だ。（写真は資料写真）
　当局者らの話では、同国では既に週に３０万から５０万件という、欧州では最多のペースで新型ウイルス検査が実施されている。
　複数の独メディアが報じた内務省の文書によると、アンゲラ・メルケル政権はこの検査数を、少なくとも１日当たり２０万件にまで増やす方針だという。感染疑いの全員、さらに感染が確認された人と接触があった全員の検査が目標とされる。
　現在の指針では、新型ウイルス感染症の症状が出ている人や感染者と接触した人が主な検査対象となっているが、この内務省文書では、「状況を確認する」検査から「先回りする」検査に移行すると説明されているという。
　その上で欠かせない「武器」となるのが、患者の最近の動きの追跡に向けたスマートフォンの位置情報の活用だ。感染の恐れのある人々をより正確に追い、隔離するためとされる。
　携帯電話を用いた追跡案には、政府関係者や疫学者らが賛同している一方で、プライバシーが重視されるドイツでは物議を醸しかねない。ナチス時代、さらには共産主義時代の旧東独の秘密警察シュタージによる、市民監視の暗い歴史があるからだ。
　ドイツのこの計画は、韓国の感染拡大制御の一助になったとみられている「追跡、検査、治療」戦略と重なる。具体的には、感染疑い例を大規模に検査し、積極的なＩＴ活用による患者らの監視が挙げられる。
　ロベルト・コッホ研究所のロタール・ウィーラー所長は、主要日刊紙フランクフルター・アルゲマイネに対し、ドイツと韓国は全く違う国であるとはいえ、韓国の新型ウイルス対策は「手本になり得る」という見方を示し、「鍵となるのは携帯電話データの追跡だ」と述べている。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】
〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2020/03/31-12:59）

In the race against the coronavirus, Germany is betting on widespread testing and quarantining to break the infection chain, a strategy borrowed from South Korea whose success in slowing the outbreak has become the envy of the world.
Germany is already carrying out more coronavirus tests than any other European country at a rate of 300,000 to 500,000 a week, according to officials.
But Chancellor Angela Merkel's government aims to ramp that up to at least 200,000 tests a day, according to an interior ministry document seen by several German media outlets.
The goal would be to test all those who suspect they have caught the virus, as well as the entire circle of people who have come into contact with a confirmed case.
Current testing criteria are focussed on those who are sick with COVID-19 symptoms and have had contact with a confirmed case.
The idea, according to the document, is to move from tests that confirm the situation to tests that get ahead of it.
A crucial weapon in the battle would be the use of smartphone location data to trace a patient's recent movements, to more accurately track down and isolate potentially infected people.
- Cell-phone tracking -
While government officials and epidemiologists have come out in favour of cell-phone tracking, it remains a controversial idea in privacy-minded Germany, a nation haunted by the surveillance of the Nazi era and the communist-era Stasi secret police.
Germany's proposed plans echo the trace, test and treat strategy that appears to have helped South Korea bring its outbreak under control. It has included mass screening for potential cases and heavy use of technology to monitor patients.
Although Germany and South Korea are two very different countries, the Asian nation's virus strategy can be an example, the head of Germany's Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for disease control told the Frankfurter Allgemeine daily.
A key point is tracing cell phone data, Lothar Wieler said.
- Storm brewing -
With a total of 389 deaths out of more than 52,000 cases, Germany has a mortality rate of just 0.7 percent -- compared with around 10 percent in hardest-hit Italy and eight percent in Spain.
But German Health Minister Jens Spahn has warned that the country could face a storm of new cases in the weeks ahead.
The RKI's Wieler warned that the dramatic scenes at Italian hospitals at breaking point could happen in Germany as well.
We can't rule out that we will have more patients than ventilators here too, he said.
With 25,000 intensive care beds equipped with ventilators, Germany is in a better position than many countries to deal with an influx of patients in respiratory distress.
But years of underfunding have left the country's healthcare system woefully understaffed.
In recent months, some intensive care beds have had to be put out of action because of a lack of staff, said Reinhard Busse, a specialist in health economics at the Technical University of Berlin.
Germany currently has some 17,000 unfilled vacancies in nursing care.
As a result, many hospitals have resorted to drafting in retired health professionals or student medics to help with the expected coronavirus onslaught, including at Berlin's renowned Charite university hospital.
- Polish workers -
Even before the coronavirus crisis, operations had to be cancelled because of a lack of staff, Uwe Luebking, head of labour market policies at the German Association of Towns and Municipalities, told AFP.
And when there is personnel on hand, nurses can spend up to four hours a day doing paperwork as Germany continues to lag behind other nations in digitalising administrative tasks, experts say.
To make matters worse, confinement measures and border checks brought in to stem the virus spread have made it harder for foreign workers to travel to their German workplaces, with healthcare institutions on the frontier with Poland particularly affected.
Critics have also argued that the German health system, which pays hospitals a fixed price per surgery, has led many hospitals to focus on the more lucrative practice of offering scheduled surgeries like hip or knee replacements, at the expense of strengthening their emergency care facilities.
Although Spahn has urged the directors of some 2,000 hospitals and clinics to cancel all non-urgent surgeries, several are resisting the call, according to Der Spiegel weekly.