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Countries agree that the number of new corona infections should be reduced. But how? Among other things, Bavaria wants to tighten contact restrictions. The planned relaxation for Christmas is sparking discussion.
Nearly 18,000 new corona cases, an increase of 3,000 cases compared to Sunday a week ago: These figures from the Robert Koch Institute show that the “closing light” does not reduce the numbers. This calls more and more to the countries on the scene. “The numbers have to come down,” Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Söder said after a special meeting of his cabinet.
Bavaria wants to toughen the measures on its own and has come up with a ten-point plan: starting Wednesday, provided the Bavarian state parliament agrees, the disaster will apply again until early January. Contacts are then much more restricted: people can only leave their homes for valid reasons: work, shopping, medical care, according to Söder. In that case, a night curfew would also be applied at critical points.
In the particularly controversial Bavarian schools, there is “stronger contact,” says Söder, especially in the upper grades. Therefore, all vocational schools must complete classroom instruction as of Wednesday. From the eighth grade onward, lesson switching should happen everywhere too.
Thuringia also restricts Christmas
The holiday season is the subject of heated debate across the country: Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Bund-Länder Round agreed to relax contact restrictions already in place during the holidays. Söder wants to hold on to this: the festival is of particular importance in Christian Bavaria. The relaxation originally planned for New Year’s Eve shouldn’t happen in Bavaria. Also, alcohol in the open air is prohibited.
But it is not only Bavaria that is reacting to the persistently high number of infections: according to information from the Funke media group, Thuringia also does not want to relax crown measures at Christmas. In his opinion, nothing else is possible given the high number of infections. The State Chancellery in Erfurt confirmed that the cabinet will discuss the measures during the holidays on Tuesday.
Bouffier relies on local measures
An example that not all countries can follow. Hessian Prime Minister Volker Bouffier said in the “Berlin Report” that he was more confident in local measures. In hotspots you should definitely think about a curfew. “Where there is a lot of activity, we may have to keep restricting,” Bouffier said. In other low incidence areas, however, such restrictions make little sense.
In view of the very different strategies of the countries, the calls for a coordinated approach are again louder: “We need a conference of the leaders of the countries this week. Otherwise, 25,000 people will die by the end of January,” he demands. SPD health expert Karl Lauterbach at the “Süddeutsche Zeitung”.
According to the Prime Minister of Saxony, Michael Kretschmer, such a meeting should take place at the end of this week. “It can’t go on like this,” says the CDU politician on ZDF. Adjustments must be made, especially at access points.
Hospitals sound the alarm
Once again, hospitals made it clear today that time is of the essence: “In individual countries like Saxony, the number of intensive care patients is five times higher than in April,” said the president of the German Hospital Association, Gerald Gaß by “Welt am Sonntag”. “It is clear that we will have problems if we do not manage to reduce the number of infections accordingly,” Gass said.
