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North Rhine-Westphalia Prime Minister Armin Laschet firmly hopes that the previous crown restrictions will be extended for more than three weeks: “The lockdown will continue until the end of January,” he said in a video chat with the Ruhr’s CDU. Monday night Laschet added that “there is still no text” for the prime minister’s conference with the foreign minister on Tuesday. The corona’s situation is “still dire”, also due to Britain’s mutated virus. The Reuters news agency had previously reported that most federal states would agree to extend the blockade until the end of January.
To contain the pandemic, schools in Germany are expected to remain closed longer than planned. The culture ministers of the federal states decided that at a conference for change, as announced by the culture ministers conference in Berlin. Due to the infection, measures decided in December may need to be continued in Germany or individual countries.
Laschet said how long and how long school and daycare closures should take is still a matter of controversy. Saxony, Thuringia and Bavaria wanted to “close schools”, while the SPD-ruled states in particular wanted more openings. NRW looks for “no special route” but an online course with as many other federal states as possible.
If the situation in individual countries allows, schools can be resumed in stages, education ministers decided. First, students in grades 1-6 must return to schools. By halving the classes, alternate lessons should be possible for the upper classes. Graduating classes should be excluded so that they can adequately prepare for the exams. A closure was originally planned for the schools later this week.
Spahn Announces Vaccination Offer For All Until Summer
The Minister of Health, Jens Spahn, has announced that all citizens can be offered a vaccine “until the summer.” At a meeting of the CDU-CSU parliamentary group, according to media reports, he promised the vaccines “probably in the second quarter of 2021” to all interested parties. Until now, later dates were expected. Spahn said after the information from the Spiegelthat the Moderna vaccine is expected to be approved this week. 50 million doses of the vaccine are planned for Germany. Together with the Biontech product, that is enough for anyone interested.
After criticism for a wavering start, the federal government apparently wants to make more and faster vaccines possible. For example, up to a fifth more cans will be obtained from a bottle of the Biontech material, according to a document from the Health Ministry, which the Reuters news agency received on Monday. the world reports that Spahn had announced at the group meeting that the European Medicines Agency would allow the use of six doses of the Biontech vaccine instead of the previous five.
Also, according to Reuters, the second vaccines needed will come later. This would allow more people to be immunized for the first time in the initial phase. However, vaccine makers Biontech and Pfizer are slowing down the debate over whether a second corona vaccine can initially be dispensed with to vaccinate more people. There is no data that the effect of the vaccine lasts after 21 days, according to a statement from both companies. The vaccine must be administered a second time to achieve complete protection.
NRW: Vaccinations for Hospital Employees Beginning January 18
In North Rhine-Westphalia, starting on January 18, corona vaccines will be offered to all hospital employees who work close to Covid patients. NRW Minister of Health Karl-Josef Laumann (CDU) announced in Düsseldorf.
Laumann also said that the vaccination centers would be operational from February, even offering vaccines to people over 80 years old in the country. Those affected would receive a corresponding letter in the coming days. In this second wave, employees in ambulatory care services will also be offered a corresponding offer. Laumann expects vaccinations of those over 80 to take place in February and March.
Climate target for 2020 reached due to the pandemic
Germany had set a climate protection target for last year that was 40 percent fewer emissions than in 1990, but the prospects of achieving it were slim. The pandemic has now apparently ensured that greenhouse gas emissions have declined even further – by 42.3 percent. Without the coronavirus, according to the analysis, Germany would have reduced its CO₂ emissions by 37.8 percent compared to 1990. This was the result of an analysis by the expert group Agora Energiewende.
According to estimates, emissions decreased by more than 80 million tons of CO₂ to around 722 million tons. Two thirds of this reduction is a consequence of the corona pandemic, without it the decrease would only have been around 25 million tons and the 2020 target would have been lost.
In particular, energy consumption fell significantly last year due to the pandemic. According to experts, there were also relatively high CO₂ prices in the EU, making it more expensive to produce climate-damaging electricity from coal, as well as low gas prices and a mild winter with not as much heating . According to Agora’s analysis, in 2020 more electricity was generated from wind power than coal for the first time in Germany.
“There were only real effects of climate protection in 2020 in the electricity sector, because here the reduction of CO₂ can be traced back to the substitution of coal for gas and renewables,” explained Agora Energiewende director Patrick Graichen. “Traffic and industry will again emit more greenhouse gases as soon as the economy recovers.” By 2021, expect more emissions overall. “You can only counteract this by acting quickly on climate policy.”
According to the analysis, renewables provided 46.2 percent of electricity in Germany, 3.8 percentage points more than the previous year. Without Corona and the 3.6 percent decline in electricity demand, the share of renewables would have been just 44.6 percent in 2020, he said. In general, a large amount of wind energy and increased production of wind energy in the sea, that is, through wind farms in the sea, are responsible for two thirds of the increase in green electricity, one third is due to solar systems.
The expansion of onshore wind turbines in particular, but also solar systems, is still far from sufficient to meet climate protection targets by 2030, Graichen warned. So far, this target has been 55 percent less CO₂ emissions than in 1990. However, in December, the EU states decided to adjust the EU-wide target from 40 to 55 percent reduction; this should also have consequences for Germany. Agora Energiewende, for example, predicts that CO₂ prices for energy production will continue to rise, putting further pressure on coal and lignite power plants.
