All non-essential businesses as well as schools and nurseries will close in Germany starting next Wednesday and until January 10 to try to stop the second wave of the coronavirus, the Chancellor announced on Sunday Angela Merkel.
The conservative leader confirmed the “very numerous deaths” due to the covid-19 epidemic, and the “exponential growth” of infections.
“We are obliged to act, and we act now”, he assured.
With this partial confinement, companies will have to allow their employees to work from home or facilitate vacations during the next three and a half weeks “to apply the principle of ‘we stay at home’ throughout the country”.
These measures were adopted by Merkel after a meeting this Sunday with the 16 regional leaders of the federal states.
Germany has imposed these more drastic measures after revealing itself unable to stop the second wave of covid-19
The number of new daily infections touched 30,000 on Friday and Saturday, well above the daily average for the first wave, which Germany controlled better than many European countries.
The record for deaths in one day was broken on Thursday, with 598.
“We must intensify urgently, and even more efforts,” declared on Friday German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the country’s moral authority.
