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BERLIN: Germany will enter a partial lockdown starting Wednesday and nonessential shops and schools will close, as Europe’s largest economy struggles to stop “exponential growth” in coronavirus infections.
The new restrictions will apply until January 10, and companies are urged to allow employees to work from home or offer extended company vacations, under new measures agreed by Chancellor Angela Merkel with regional leaders of the 16 states of Germany on Sunday.
“That would help implement the ‘stay at home’ principle,” according to the policy document agreed by Merkel and state prime ministers.
Germans are urged to limit their social contacts to another household, with a maximum of five people, excluding children under 14, who meet at any given time.
From Christmas Eve to Boxing Day, contacts would be relaxed to allow meetings with four other people excluding children, but which should be limited to close relatives or partners. In November, Germany closed cultural and leisure facilities and banned indoor dining in restaurants.
The measures had helped stem the rapid growth of infections after the fall school holidays, but the numbers had stalled at a high rate.
Merkel had repeatedly pushed for tougher restrictions to break the chain of contagion, but implementation of the rules is in the hands of individual states and some were reluctant to impose further restrictions.
However, the mood has changed in the last week after Germany recorded a new daily death toll reaching nearly 600 and when the country’s disease control agency RKI reported that the trend towards infections it had taken a worrying turn.
“Today is not the day to look back or to see what could have been, rather, today is the day to do what is necessary,” Merkel said, noting “a very high number of deaths” and highlighting the urgent need to act .
“The situation in the crown is out of control,” Bavarian state prime minister Markus Soeder said, vowing to implement the strictest restrictions in his state.
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.
“With the resulting increased mobility and associated contacts in the pre-Christmas period, Germany is now experiencing exponential growth in infection figures,” said the policy document agreed by regional leaders and Merkel.
While hospitals in some regions are warning that their intensive care units are reaching full capacity, huge lines of shoppers were forming in the center ahead of the holiday period.
The chancellor had also expressed his dismay at the groups of people gathering for a drink at the mulled wine stands set up by restaurants as a substitute for the popular Christmas market food.
Also starting Wednesday, the sale of alcohol in public places will be banned as part of the new package of measures, essentially banning such stalls.
The HDE Retail Federation has warned that the new restrictions could threaten nearly one in two jobs in the industry.
But Finance Minister Olaf Scholz said the government will offer aid of up to € 11 billion a month to help companies weather the storm.
Posted in Dawn, Dec 14, 2020
