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Merkel Says Up To 70% Of Germans Could Catch Coronavirus

REUTERS/Vincent Kessler

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Chuck Ross Investigative Reporter
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German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Wednesday that up to 70% of the German population could come down with the novel coronavirus.

“Given a virus for which there is no immunity and no immunization, we have to understand that many people will be infected, the consensus among experts is that 60 to 70% of the population will be infected,” Merkel said at a press conference in Berlin.

Merkel did not cite a source for her alarming statistic, which would translate into as many as 58 million infections in Germany.

Harvard epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch put out a prediction in February that between 40 and 70% of the world’s population could come down with coronavirus, known as COVID-19, but he revised those numbers down to a 20-60% infection rate based on data on the virus’s transmissibility.

Merkel said that since there is not yet a vaccine for COVID-19, the goal in fighting the virus is to delay and limit its spread, so that hospitals can better manage the epidemic.

“It’s about winning time,” she said, according to Reuters.

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Merkel’s remarks are in stark contrast to those of President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly expressed confidence that the U.S. will be able to limit the spread of COVID-19. (RELATED: The President’s Dangerous Coronavirus Position)

“When you have 15 people, and the 15, within a couple of days, is going to be down to close to zero, that’s a pretty good job we’ve done,” Trump said at a White House press conference Feb. 26.

As of Wednesday, nearly 1,700 Germans had tested positive for COVID-19. The United States surpassed the 1,000-case threshold Tuesday night. The U.S. has a far higher death tally from the virus compared to Germany, thanks in large part to an outbreak at a nursing home near Seattle, Washington.

U.S. officials said that 31 people have died here from complications from COVID-19, most of them elderly or with underlying health conditions. Only two people have died in Germany from COVID-19, according to a database maintained by Johns Hopkins University.

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