Germans who repeatedly refuse to quarantine after being exposed to COVID-19 are being held in detention centers – and even under police surveillance, according to reports.
Officials in Saxony – home to one of the worst outbreaks in the European nation – have already approved plans to detain quarantine breakers in a gated section of a refugee camp, The Telegraph said.
Another state, Brandenburg, also plans to use part of a refugee camp.
In Schleswig-Holstein, repeat offenders will be held in a juvenile detention center in a special area, the report said, citing the German newspaper Welt.
The state of Baden-Württemberg has two hospitals with rooms for the scofflaws, which will be guarded by the police, the report said.
The centers aim to detain only those who continue to break the lockdown even after being fined, the report said.
States have been empowered to do so under the Disease Protection Act, an emergency law passed by the German Bundestag last March and renewed in November, Dr. Christoph Degenhart, an expert in administrative law, at Die Welt.
Joana Cotar, a member of the populist Alternative for Germany party, tweeted that those involved in the centers were “Reading too much Orwell.”
According to Johns Hopkins University, Germany has seen more than 2 million confirmed coronavirus cases and nearly 47,000 deaths since Monday.