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BERLIN – Most stores are closing, strict limits on social contacts, no singing in church and a ban on the sale of fireworks: Germany is increasing its pandemic restrictions in an effort to reduce the stubbornly high rate of coronavirus infections.
Chancellor Angela Merkel said she and the governors of Germany’s 16 states agreed on Sunday to intensify the country’s lockdown measures from Wednesday to January 10 to halt the exponential rise in COVID-19 cases in the country.
“We are obliged to act and we are acting,” Merkel told reporters in Berlin, noting that existing restrictions imposed in November had failed to significantly reduce the number of new infections.
The seven-day moving average of daily new cases in Germany has increased in the last two weeks from 21.23 new cases per 100,000 people on November 28 to 26 new cases per 100,000 people on December 12.
Starting Wednesday, schools across the country will be closed or switch to homeschooling; most non-food stores will close, as will businesses such as hair salons that have so far been able to stay open. Take-out will be allowed in restaurants, but may not be eaten or drunk on site.
With the exception of Christmas, the number of people allowed to gather inside will remain restricted to five, not including children under the age of 14.
The sale of fireworks traditionally used to celebrate the New Year will also be banned, as will open-air public gatherings on New Year’s Eve.
Bavaria Governor Markus Soeder said the fireworks ban followed appeals from hospitals, which said they could not treat the large number of serious injuries that result each year from mishandling explosives.
“We must be careful that Germany does not become Europe’s problem child,” he said.
Germany has set new records for the number of confirmed cases and deaths in recent weeks. Overall, it has had around 22,000 deaths from the virus, a figure that is one-third that of Italy and Britain.
Finance Minister Olaf Scholz said the government will provide more financial support to companies affected by the shutdown. The German news agency dpa reported that the additional sums amounted to 11.2 billion euros ($ 13.6 billion).
Employers will be asked to allow staff to work from home, when possible, for the next month.
Religious services will be allowed, as long as there are minimum distance rules and masks are worn, although singing will be prohibited.
Nursing home staff will need to take COVID-19 tests several times a week, and home visitors will need to provide a negative result before they can see family members.
The German Hospital Federation welcomed the new measures, but called it “difficult to understand” why the European Medicines Agency had not yet approved the first coronavirus vaccine. Britain, Canada and the United States have already approved the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, and the United Kingdom began vaccinating last week.
Hospitals in the hard-hit eastern Dresden region have called on people to responsibly follow social distancing and wearing masks, saying medical facilities are nearing full capacity.
“Nurses and doctors are already at their physical and psychological limits,” the hospitals said in newspaper ads.
Three counties in Saxony, where Dresden is located, have reported infection rates more than 10 times higher than the government’s target. The state has been a hotbed of protests against coronavirus restrictions.
