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The German Government and the federal states agreed this Sunday to decree a “hard confinement” starting this Wednesday to try to stop the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, it was officially reported.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the heads of the 16 federal states agreed in a teleconference to take this step, which represents a tightening of the restrictions on public life and commercial activity in force since November.
Only essential shops will be able to open from December 16. The schools will also close their doors at the latest on Wednesday and will extend their Christmas holidays for three and a half weeks, until January 10 (compared to January 4 initially planned). The meetings, also at Christmas, will be limited to five people from two homes (not counting those under 14 years of age).
In addition, working from home is recommended and the travel ban is maintained. Finance Minister Olaf Scholz announced that a new aid package will be approved shortly to support the economy, in line with those approved so far during the previous restrictions.
Angela Merkel, German Chancellor.
Merkel defended last Wednesday a tightening of restrictions on public life and economic activity, also at Christmas, given the high number of deaths. But the competences in this area lie with the federal states, which until now had been reluctant or had not been able to agree on a unified position.
Germany registered in the last 24 hours 20,200 new infections by covid-19 and 321 deaths, according to figures from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), a reference epidemiological center. The record in both categories occurred this Friday, with 29,875 new cases and 598 fatalities.
Only essential shops can open from December 16
This Saturday slightly lower figures were reported: 28,438 new cases of covid and 496 deaths. In the last seven days, 140,383 cases have been recorded in Germany -the most populous country in the EU with 83.2 million inhabitants-, with which the cumulative incidence in that period for the country as a whole is 169.1 cases per every 100,000 inhabitants.
Total, Germany has registered 1,320,716 coronavirus infections (more than 1.5% of the population), of which 21,787 have died. The RKI estimates that the number of recovered already rises to 967,900 people, while some 330,000 are currently infected by Sars-CoV2.
EFE
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