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FRANKFURT: Germans should prepare for another 4-5 months of tough measures to halt the rise in coronavirus infections and should not expect current rules to loosen quickly, Economy Minister Peter Altmaier told the weekly Bild am Sonntag .
“We are not out of the woods yet,” he said, referring to the infection figures. “We cannot afford a yo-yo shutdown with the economy constantly opening and closing.”
READ: COVID-19 restrictions tighten in Europe as global deaths exceed 1.3 million
Germany has imposed a series of measures called “blocking light” to curb the second wave of the pandemic that the country is seeing in common with much of the rest of Europe. Although restaurants are closed, schools and stores remain open until now.
Data from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases showed on Sunday that the number of confirmed cases in Germany rose from 16,947 to 790,503. The figures for the weekend tend to be lower, as local authorities do not report all the data.
READ: French Prime Minister says easing COVID-19 lockdown now would be ‘irresponsible’
Altmaier said Germany should be careful to relax restrictions too quickly.
“If we don’t want days with 50,000 new infections, as was the case in France a few weeks ago, we have to see through this and not constantly speculate on what measures can be relaxed again,” he told Bild am Sonntag.
“All the countries that lifted their restrictions too early have so far paid a high price in terms of human lives lost.”
His comments echoed those of other German political leaders. Among others, Health Minister Jens Spahn told an online event for Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative party on Saturday that difficult weeks, possibly even months, remain.
The German president of the World Medical Association, Frank Ulrich Montgomery, warned of a possible shortage of beds and staffing problems in German hospitals.
“My forecast is that we will have to talk about more restrictions instead of easing,” he told the Augsburger Allgemeine newspaper.
German police fired water cannons during an anti-blockade demonstration in Frankfurt on Saturday and eventually broke up the meeting because rules such as wearing masks and social distancing were not observed.
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