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The drastic measures that will affect stores other than those that sell basic products would be imposed from Wednesday until at least January 10, according to a draft of Merkel’s office seen by AFP.
This video capture taken from the German television channel ARD on March 18, 2020 shows German Chancellor Angela Merkel addressing the nation about the spread of the new coronavirus COVID-19 at the Berlin Chancellery. Image: AFP
BERLIN – Chancellor Angela Merkel will hold crisis talks on Sunday with regional leaders from Germany’s 16 states to agree to tougher restrictions, including closing shops before Christmas, as coronavirus infections rise unabated.
The drastic measures that will affect stores other than those that sell basic products would be imposed from Wednesday until at least January 10, according to a draft of Merkel’s office seen by AFP.
Schools could also be closed, sending students to homeschooling, while companies are required to allow employees to work from home during that period.
Bavarian state prime minister Markus Soeder, who has been pushing for tougher measures, expressed support for the measures.
“The numbers are worse than ever, we must not allow ourselves to get bogged down with individual measures,” he told the Welt am Sonntag newspaper.
Along with Merkel, Soeder has been seeking stricter restrictions for weeks, warning that the current round of closures affecting cinemas, cinemas, gyms and indoor dining rooms was not broad enough.
But implementation of the restrictions is in the hands of individual states, and some regions where infection levels were lower have resisted imposing strict restrictions.
However, the mood changed in the last week after Germany recorded a new daily death toll that reached close to 600.
The head of the country’s disease control agency, Lothar Wieler, warned on Thursday that the trend towards infections had taken a worrying turn.
“The increase in the numbers is worrying,” said Institute President Robert Koch, Wieler, warning that after stabilizing for a few weeks, “the course of infections could turn again” toward exponential growth.
‘LAST CHRISTMAS?’
Germany has imposed closure rules much less strict than other major European nations after emerging relatively unscathed from the first wave of the pandemic.
But Europe’s largest economy has been hit hard by a second wave with new infections daily more than three times higher than the spring peak.
Germany recorded another 20,200 new Covid cases in the past 24 hours, reaching a total of 1,320,716 cases, according to RKI data released on Sunday.
Another 321 patients died from the disease the day before, bringing the total death toll to 21,787.
In a forceful speech to the Bundestag on Wednesday, Merkel issued a stern warning to Germans ahead of the Christmas season, when families are expected to reunite.
“If we have too many contacts before Christmas and it ends up being the last Christmas with the grandparents, then we really would have failed,” he said.
Merkel’s government has repeatedly said that the figures should be lowered to 50 per 100,000 inhabitants, but the rate is currently 169.1 per 100,000.
Before the talks, the worst-affected states in Germany already ordered new measures.
The state of Saxony, where incidence rates have reached 500 per 100,000 in some areas, will keep shops and schools closed from Monday.
The curfew will also go into effect from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m.
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