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German Health Minister Jens Spahn urged caution on Sunday in light of the rising numbers of coronavirus infections, just as schools across the country prepare for reopening.
“The virus is not making it easy for us,” Spahn told German broadcaster ARD.
“We’re seeing the numbers go up again. That’s annoying, and it brings back some uncertainty. That’s why caution, testing and vaccination must continue to guide our path.”
Germany has been in partial lockdown since November and has managed to reduce the contamination rate in recent weeks.
But the numbers have started to stabilize and even rise slightly in recent days, a trend due to the rapid spread of the more contagious British variant of the virus.
Experts warn that Germany could be at the start of a third wave of coronavirus, even as the country’s 16 states are starting to relax some of their curbs.
From Monday, schools and nurseries will reopen in 10 German regions.
Many schools plan to limit class size in addition to other precautions such as wearing a mask and airing rooms, but critics have questioned whether the timing is right for the reopenings.
Spahn said a balance must be struck between protecting Germans from the risks of new, more contagious strains of viruses and the need for children to live some sort of “normal everyday life.”
The impact of school reopenings would be closely monitored before the next steps in the pandemic were taken, he added.
“Once schools and daycare centers reopen, there will be millions more people out there. We need to see what difference that makes with regard to the mutations,” Spahn said.
“We cannot make false promises” about further easing, he added.
Spahn and Germany’s 16 regional health ministers will discuss Monday that teachers and child carers are moving higher on the vaccine priority list.
If approved, they move from Group 3 to Group 2, making them next when Germany has vaccinated most of the elderly in care homes.
Germany added a further 7,676 coronavirus cases on Sunday, bringing the total to more than 2.3 million since the start of the pandemic.
More than 67,000 people have died from the virus, according to the Robert Koch Institute for disease control.
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