Germany lockdown measures: Germany is likely to extend a national lockdown beyond Jan. 10th to curb coronavirus infection rates that are still running high. The number of infections are putting huge strains on hospitals and health workers leading to extreme lockdown measures taken.
Chancellor Angela Merkel and regional leaders are expected to agree to extend the restrictions when they convene on Tuesday. It is still unclear as to how long tthe extension should last. There has also been debate on when schools and daycares should reopen again and is face to face interaction are. We wrote about it here>>.
“The numbers are still too high, so we will have to prolong the restrictions,” Health Minister Jens Spahn told RTL television in an interview on Saturday evening.
Infection rates had to be sustainably reduced, Spahn said, adding: “That is better than loosening too early and then, perhaps in as little as a few weeks, facing new and difficult questions.”
“The lockdown must be extended until the end of January,” Bavarian State Premier Markus Söder told German newspaper Bild on Sunday on the topic of Germany lockdown measures to curb new infections.
“We will only see next week in the hospitals how strongly Christmas contributed to the spread of COVID-19 – the New Year effect will come only later,” Uwe Janssens, head of a group representing intensive-care doctors, told the Rheinische Post.
Officials from Germany’s 16 states agreed on a conference call on Saturday to extend restrictions, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung reported.
States hit hardest argued for a three-week extension until January 31, the Frankfurter Allgemeine reported, citing the meeting’s participants. These include Saxony, Thuringia, Baden-Württemberg, and Bavaria.
The infection situation gives “no reason to sound the all-clear,” Lower Saxony’s premier, Stephan Weil, told the national daily Die Welt on Sunday.
Although it was “irritating,” the numbers of infections were simply too high to lift restrictions, Bavarian leader Söder added in a tweet.
But there was disagreement over how much longer to keep the measures in force. Some harder-hit states called for a three-week extension, and for schools to be kept closed, while others favoured a two-week extension.