[ad_1]
Germany reports a new record daily figure for the number of deaths in covid-19: 590 people. At the same time, Chancellor Angela Merkel calls for tougher restrictions.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel delivered an emotional speech in the Bundestag.
“I’m sorry, and I mean it from the bottom of my heart,” said an unusually emotional Merkel in a speech to the Bundestag.
The German chancellor emphasized that death rates like the current one, with 590 deaths in one day, were not acceptable, and urged all Germans to avoid all unnecessary physical contact.
– If we meet too many people now before Christmas, and then it will be the last Christmas with the grandparents … It would be a failure, said Merkel with a voice close to exploding.
Germany survived the first phase of the pandemic relatively mildly this spring, but during the fall, the Robert Koch Institute, the Swedish Institute for Infectious Disease Control, reported alarmingly high numbers in both confirmed cases and deaths. The death toll reported on Wednesday (590 people) is by a good margin the highest so far in the country, just over a hundred more than the previous peak last week.
In her speech, Merkel asked lawmakers to decide on what the German media calls a strict lockdown, a demand previously made by the German Academy of Sciences. Among other things, the chancellor proposed that stores be forced to close from after Christmas until at least January 10, and that classroom teaching be minimized.
However, the issue of closed schools is decided by the states, whose leaders regularly consult with each other and with the government on measures to be taken to curb the spread of the infection.
Merkel’s appeal drew applause from members, but not from the right-wing populist Alternative for Germany (AFD), for which the chancellor is a red curtain. Party leader Alice Weidel accused Merkel of handling the “ill-considered and grotesque” pandemic.
“Citizens are locked up and entire industries are wiped out,” he said, referring to the German covid restrictions.
The situation in Germany compared to Sweden
Germany ranks 50th in the world on the grim list of deaths from covid relative to population size. Approximately 240 deaths per million inhabitants are reported in Germany.
This is a much better result than that of Sweden, which has 700 deaths per million and is therefore ranked 20th in the world.
Recently, however, the situation in Germany has worsened more than in Sweden, with 28 deaths per million in the last week compared to the Swedish figure of 22.
Source: Statista.
