Angela Merkel’s chief of staff fears an explosion of new coronavirus cases in Germany, which could increase to 100,000 per day by the end of September, German weekly Bild am Sonntag reported on Sunday (25).
Chief of Staff Angela Merkel fears an explosion of new coronavirus cases in Germany, which could rise to 100,000 per day by the end of September, the German weekly reported on Sunday (25). picture on sunday.
After more than two months of continuous decline, the Covid-19 epidemic in Europe’s largest economy has begun to escalate again since early July, mainly due to the delta variant, 60% more contagious.
According to Helge Braun, director of the German Chancellery, the number of new cases has increased by 60% per week, in a context in which nearly half of Germany’s population has received a full course of vaccination.
“If the delta variant continues to spread at this rate and we don’t have a high vaccination rate, we will have an infection rate of 850 (per 100,000 people) in just nine weeks,” he said in an interview. picture on sunday.
“That would equate to 100,000 new infections a day,” Brown said, estimating that this would have direct consequences for businesses because infected employees must be quarantined.
“The impact on the way factories work will be significant. We are already seeing this happen in the UK,” he noted.
Restrictions on not vaccinating
Merkel’s chief of staff said that people who have not been vaccinated against Covid-19, even if they test negative, may face further restrictions if infections continue to rise in Germany. “Vaccinated people certainly have more freedom than unvaccinated people,” Brown insisted.
Currently, Germans can go to public places such as restaurants, cinemas or gyms if they have been fully vaccinated or have recently had a negative test. If infection rates continue to rise, Brown said, unvaccinated people will have to reduce their social contacts. “This may mean that access to places such as restaurants, cinemas and stadiums will no longer be possible, even for unvaccinated tested people, because the risk is very high,” he said.
“The state has a duty to protect people’s health,” Brown insisted. “This assumes a health care system does not have to delay cancer-related interventions again in the winter to treat Covid patients.”
Germany had a lower infection rate in early summer than many of its neighbors, but cases have increased in the past two weeks, largely due to the delta variant.
Merkel said last week she was concerned about the “clear and alarming dynamic” of the increase in cases and encouraged as many Germans as possible to get vaccinated. As of Sunday, 60.8% of them had received one dose of the vaccine and 49.1% had received both doses.
However, Merkel said that her country does not plan to follow France and other countries in introducing mandatory vaccination for part of the population. German Health Minister Jens Spahn announced in early July that vaccinated people would not have to go through a new full lockdown and would benefit from more freedoms than unvaccinated people should the pandemic resume.
“As long as there are no mutations (of the virus) that affect the protection provided by vaccines (…), full vaccination means that restrictions such as those of last winter will not be necessary,” he said.
(AFP com)
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