Faced with a second wave of Covid-19, Germany is preparing to declare the closure of “non-essential” businesses as of Wednesday and for at least three weeks, for fear that the spread of the virus will become uncontrollable with the holidays of end of year.
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Chancellor Angela Merkel began a videoconference meeting on Sunday morning with the leaders of the 16 Länder with a view to imposing more drastic measures, which have become unavoidable as the number of new Covid-19 infections has broken records in recent days.
According to a draft agreement between the federal state and the Länder, of which AFP has obtained a copy, in addition to most businesses, schools will close their doors from Wednesday until January 10.
Companies will also have to favor teleworking for employees.
Social contacts should be limited to a maximum of five adults from two different households and also remain very limited from December 24 to 26 when meetings will only be possible between very close family members.
After six weeks of closing restaurants, bars, theaters, cinemas, museums and sports venues, Germany must realize that these restrictions are insufficient.
“The situation remains very serious (…) It has even worsened since last week”, alerted Thursday Lothar Wieler, president of the Robert Koch health watch institute (RKI). According to him, the epidemic continues to progress because the population has not reduced its contacts enough.
In fact, with the approach of the end of the year holidays, many Germans gather in groups around mulled wine or waffle stands in all the cities of the country to the point that Chancellor Angela Merkel is deeply concerned. this week in front of the deputies.
Many are going about their Christmas shopping: some department stores and malls were almost stormed Saturday with long queues forming in front of the entrances.
But in an open letter to the Chancellor, around 30 retail players warned of the dramatic consequences of another store closure just before Christmas.
The number of new daily infections approached the 30,000 threshold on Friday and then Saturday, well above the daily average for the first wave, which Germany had better controlled than many European countries.
The record for the number of deaths on a day was also reached Thursday with 598 deaths compared to the day before.
Some regions did not wait for Sunday’s meeting to take action. In Saxony, the regional state most affected by the epidemic currently, the closures of shops and schools will come into force on Monday.
Angela Merkel, however, made a strong appeal on Wednesday to keep contact to a minimum, including on Christmas and New Years.
“If we have too much contact now, before Christmas, and then it’s the last Christmas with the grandparents, then we will have missed something”, she warned with emotion in front of the Chamber of Deputies.
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