BERLIN (AP) – The German government said on Tuesday that it is extending the country’s lockdown by three weeks until January 31, tightening social contacts and limiting the movements of people in the hardest-hit regions as it tries to push for a stubbornly high reduce infection rates. and alarming numbers of deaths from the coronavirus.
Chancellor Angela Merkel said it was “absolutely necessary” to enforce the restrictions, especially in light of a more contagious variant of the virus emerging in England.
“We need to get to a point where we can once again monitor the chains of infection,” Merkel said after a lengthy video conference with Germany’s 16 governors. “Otherwise, we’ll just go back to a lockdown after a short relaxation.”
The chancellor said restrictions on social contacts will be tightened. People are only allowed to meet one person outside of their own household.
In a new step, authorities across Germany will allow people in areas with more than 200 new infections per 100,000 inhabitants for seven days to travel just 15 kilometers (a little over nine miles) from their hometown unless they have good reason to proceed to.
“Day trips in particular are not a good reason,” Merkel said. She pointed to a string of recent incidents where day-trippers hoping to ski or sled have flooded winter resorts, even though lifts and other facilities have been closed.
Merkel and the governors plan to re-consult on January 25 about what happens after the end of the month.
Germany launched a nationwide partial shutdown on November 2, closing restaurants, bars, leisure and sports facilities. That didn’t lead to less contamination, and the current lockdown – which also closed non-essential stores and schools – went into effect on December 16 and was initially set to run until January 10.
Authorities say Germany reported numbers for COVID-19 cases are biased by lower testing and delayed reporting over the Christmas and New Year period. The country’s disease control center says it won’t have a reliable picture of what’s going on until Jan. 17, Merkel said.
But even by current figures, Germany is far from the stated goal of having new confirmed cases below 50 per 100,000 residents for seven days – the maximum level at which officials say contact tracking can work well.
On Tuesday, the infection rate was 134.7 per 100,000 nationwide, and 944 more deaths were reported to authorities within 24 hours, one of the highest daily death tolls to date in a country with a relatively low COVID-19 death rate during the first pandemic. phase.
Merkel said the emergence of the new variety in England is “one more reason” to keep the restrictions in place. Some cases of the variant have been identified in Germany.
The Chancellor defended Germany’s approach to vaccinations after criticism fueled by the perception that Europe got off to a slow start and that the European Union was too reluctant to order the BioNTech-Pfizer vaccine, the only one approved for use to date in the 27-country bloc.
Germany vaccinated nearly 317,000 people on Tuesday, just over a week into the campaign. That’s a better result than in several other EU countries, but critics have pointed to faster progress in the UK, the United States and Israel.
Merkel said it was “right and important” for the EU to order vaccines for the whole bloc instead of individual countries. She said it is “in Germany’s interest” as the country is surrounded by other EU member states and at the center of the EU’s trading zone that depends on open borders.
“A large number of vaccinated people in Germany combined with many who have not been vaccinated in our area will not be good for Germany,” she said. So we don’t want national solo efforts. We believe that the most effective health protection for us can be achieved through a common European procedure. “
Health Minister Jens Spahn, who has been criticized by the German government coalition, has repeatedly said that vaccinations are progressing as expected and that the start is slow as teams go to nursing homes first to vaccinate the most vulnerable. Merkel said she thinks Spahn is doing “a great job”.
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