> Many hospitals are struggling to cope with the increasing number of intensive care patients. There could be around 6,000 Covid-19 patients in intensive care by Christmas -- regardless of any measures implemented by Germany's leaders -- the country's Interdisciplinary Association for Intensive Care and Emergency (Divi) warned Wednesday.
The article doesn't really talk about the rate of change to date. An article from The Guardian puts this into perspective:
> Daily new infections in Germany have broken records in recent weeks, with many hospitals operating at or over capacity. Authorities said 73,209 new cases were recorded in the past 24 hours. Deaths have surged from a rolling seven-day average of just over 10 a day in August to nearly 300 this week.
To enforce something like this policy requires:
- laws and penalties
- a method for identifying those who get special treatment
- verification procedures
You'd think a country like Germany would be especially sensitive to the idea of segregating 1/3 of the population for special treatment. I'm going to assume this isn't lost on anybody there.
The question then becomes: what if this doesn't work? What if biology overtakes the law (i.e., a new variant begins sending the vaccinated into hospitals as well)? What if biology has already overtaken the law?
If it does work, when does it end? If it ends, under what circumstances is it Ok to re-impose? What precedent does this set and what unintended consequences might result (e.g., a new strain of a virus with a vaccine emerges)?