FRANKFURT - The German government on Monday switched to backing a coronavirus-tracing app using technology supported by Google and Apple, ditching a German-led alternative that had come under fire over privacy concerns.
German Health Minister Jens Spahn and Chancellor Angela Merkel's chief of staff Helge Braun said Berlin was now in favor of a "decentralized software architecture" that would see user data stored on people's own phones instead of on a central database.
"Our goal is for the tracing app to be ready for use very soon and with strong acceptance from the public and civil society," Spahn and Braun said in a joint statement.
The rollout of an app that would use bluetooth to alert smartphone users when they have been in contact with someone infected with the virus is considered crucial in the fight against the pandemic as countries like Germany relax their lockdowns.
Berlin has until now thrown its weight behind a pan-European app known as PEPP-PT being developed by some 130 European scientists, including experts from Germany's Fraunhofer research institute and Robert Koch Institute public health body.
But the proposed app had faced growing criticism over its plan to store data on a central server.
Critics said it would allow governments to hoover up personal information and could lead to mass state surveillance.
In an open letter earlier this week, some 300 leading academics urged governments to dismiss the centralized approach, saying it risked undermining public trust.
They said an approach being developed by Apple and Google, whose operating systems run most of the world's smartphones, was more privacy friendly.
The tech giants plan to collaborate with apps, like the Swiss-led DP-3T, that use a decentralized system, which would see data stored on individual devices.
The European Commission has also recommended that data harvested through coronavirus contact-tracing apps should be stored only on users' own phones and be encrypted.
The German government has repeatedly stressed that the use of any coronavirus app would be voluntary and anonymous, in a country still haunted by the spying of the Nazi era and the former East German secret police.
Agence France-Presse
BERLIN - Germany takes its first steps back towards normality on Monday, with smaller shops in some regions opening up for the first time in a month after politicians declared the coronavirus "under control".
From florists to fashion stores, the majority of shops smaller than 800 square meters (8,600 square feet) will be allowed to welcome customers again, in a first wave of relaxations to strict curbs on public life introduced last month.
Chancellor Angela Merkel and regional state premiers announced the decision to reopen last week, though they have been careful to cast it as no more than a cautious first step.
While the first shops will open their doors on Monday, each of Germany's 16 states is set to lift the restrictions at a slightly different pace.
In some states such as the capital Berlin, reopening will take a little longer.
Merkel, who has been praised for her handling of the coronavirus crisis, is hoping to reinvigorate the ailing German economy, which officially entered into recession last week.
'FRAGILE'
With 139,897 confirmed cases and 4,294 deaths as of Sunday, Germany has been one of the countries worst hit by COVID-19, but also one of the quickest to react.
On Friday, the Robert Koch Institute for public health announced that the rate of infection -- the number of people each ill person contaminates -- had dropped below one for the first time, leading Health Minister Jens Spahn to declare the virus "under control".
Yet Merkel, who was herself quarantined for two weeks earlier this month before testing negative for the virus, has warned that Germany's success remains "fragile".
"We will not be able to go back to our normal lives for a long time," said her conservative party colleague Armin Laschet, the state premier of North-Rhine Westphalia, the country's most populous region.
In an interview with Der Spiegel weekly, Laschet warned that some coronavirus restrictions could last until 2021.
A ban on gatherings of more than two people and a requirement to stand more than 1.5 metres apart from others in public areas remain in force.
That means that hairdressers, initially deemed an essential business, cannot open until at least May 4.
Cultural venues, bars, leisure centres and beauty salons will also remain closed for the time being, while large-scale public events such as concerts and football matches have been banned until August 31.
But Germans can look forward to at least some relaxations to the existing shutdown although they have not been welcomed by everyone.
With larger shops unable to open, the German Trade Association warned Friday of a possible "distortion of competition".
Yet Economy Minister Peter Altmaier defended the 800-square-metre limit, saying that "the belt can only be loosened bit by bit".
SCHOOLS REOPENING
Schools will also be partially reopened in the coming weeks, with most states set to welcome back older students from May 4.
Education policy is traditionally decided at state level in Germany, and Bavaria, the region worst hit by the virus so far, will keep its schools closed for an extra week.
On April 29, regional education ministers are set to present concrete plans on how social distancing can still be enforced in the classroom.
Germany hopes to combine the lifting of restrictions with a more efficient tracing of the spread of COVID-19.
The country hopes to ramp up testing -- it has already tested around two million people -- and aims to produce around 50 million protective masks, including 10 million of the higher efficiency FFP2 standard a week from August.
Though not yet obligatory, Merkel said her government "strongly advises" wearing a mask in public.
With more movement of the population expected as shops reopen, eastern states Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Saxony have made masks obligatory on public transport.
In doing so, they have followed the example of the eastern city of Jena, which unilaterally enforced the wearing of masks earlier this month.
According to German media, the city has had no new cases in a week.
Agence France-Presse
BERLIN - 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 focused 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 favor 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 labor 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 digitalizing 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.
Agence France-Presse
