The German health minister calls on politicians not to leave hospital staff alone

According to the minister, the statistics show that next Easter next week, Germany needs restrictions, just like a year ago, when the population was called to stay at home and refrain from any contact.

Covid-19 patient ward at Stradins Hospital

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German Chancellor Angela Merkel this week, after widespread criticism, abandoned a plan to severely restrict economic activity in the country in the fight against Covid-19 for Easter, citing legal and logistical problems.

German intensive care physicians called on politicians on Saturday to call for strict two-week quarantine, warning that this was the only way to prevent hospital overcrowding in the third wave of the Covid-19 pandemic.

As Christian Karagiannidis, head of the German Association for Interdisciplinary Intensive Care and Emergency Care, told the Rheinischen Post, strict quarantine must be combined with intensive testing and vaccination so that hospitals can cope with the influx of Covid-19 patients at all.

“I ask politicians not to leave hospital staff alone,” he added.

The Robert Koha Institute reported on Saturday the highest seven-day morbidity rate per 100,000 population since January – 124.9. The day before, this figure was 119.1.

There is no consensus among 16 German prime ministers on a strategy to halt the spread of Covid-19, with some disagreeing with the plan to return to stricter restrictions in regions with relatively low morbidity rates.

Meanwhile, a survey by the broadcaster ZDF shows that the public is more inclined to support stricter restrictions than incentives. 36% of the respondents have advocated stricter procedures, 31% have acknowledged the existing restrictions as sufficient, but only about a quarter of the respondents have indicated that they want the restrictions to be eased.