Growth isn't exponential forever, cases appear to be going down again in Germany already. Delta waves seem to be only about 8 weeks long (check data from different countries, or here: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/01/briefing/delta-peak-covid...), so two extra weeks would help a lot.
I agree that vaccines are part of the solution. I disagree that stripping citizens of their rights and insulting them on TV is part of literally any solution for anything. If a government feels the urge to do that, it should look for alternatives instead. Maintaining ICU capacity from one year before (decreased by 4000 in 2021, see: https://www.intensivregister.de/#/aktuelle-lage/zeitreihenht... - "Gesamtzahl gemeldeter Intensivbetten"), is the lowest-hanging fruit, I'm sure there are additional alternatives that I'm not qualified to comment on.
Edit: It was pointed out to me that the DIVI numbers have some complexity that I did not account for. So grain of salt on the actual ICU number, but I've not yet seen anyone deny the trend. Here's a fact check that confirms that beds were lost: https://correctiv.org/faktencheck/2021/11/17/divi-praesident...
I agree that vaccines are part of the solution. I disagree that stripping citizens of their rights and insulting them on TV is part of literally any solution for anything. If a government feels the urge to do that, it should look for alternatives instead. Maintaining ICU capacity from one year before (decreased by 4000 in 2021, see: https://www.intensivregister.de/#/aktuelle-lage/zeitreihenht... - "Gesamtzahl gemeldeter Intensivbetten"), is the lowest-hanging fruit, I'm sure there are additional alternatives that I'm not qualified to comment on.
Edit: It was pointed out to me that the DIVI numbers have some complexity that I did not account for. So grain of salt on the actual ICU number, but I've not yet seen anyone deny the trend. Here's a fact check that confirms that beds were lost: https://correctiv.org/faktencheck/2021/11/17/divi-praesident...