Coronavirus in Germany: A new Germany study conducted warned that the economic consequence of another lockdown would be severe and that it would be cheaper for people in Germany to adhere to the 2G rules which exclude unvaccinated people from many public setting.
Businesses and politicians have been discussing whether the so called ‘2G rule’ should be enforced as this would mean that only the vaccinated (geimpft) and recovered (genesen) people could visit many indoor areas such as restaurants, bars and cafes, as well as cinemas ans gyms.
Most of Germany currently has the 3G rule in place, which allows unvaccinated people to enter with a negative Covid test (getestet).
Now a new study from the Leibniz Institute for Economic Research in Essen (RWI) says further lockdown measures would cause serious financial damage to affected sectors, prompting more debate on the best strategy for Germany.
During the Coronavirus period there was a massive shutdown of culture, events, tourism and hospitality industries cost about €70 billion to affected businesses and organisations.
Should there not be a significant increase in vaccinations then there could be another partial shutdown in contact-intensive services.
The latest data shows 66.5 percent of the population has had at least one jab, and 62.2 percent are fully vaccinated.
If the infection figures and hospital occupancies increase in the coming winter, meaning that services like gyms, museums or hospitality have to partially close down, there could be a loss of €52 billion.
Compared to today, this would correspond to a loss of 0.6 percentage points of the growth in gross domestic product (GDP).
The Local.de wrote that, Michael Hüther, of the Institute of the German Economy (IW) in Cologne, also believes that the risk of a complete lockdown like the one last winter is relatively low – but that a partial lockdown is possible.
Source: The Local.de