Germans should brace for another four to five months of severe measures to halt the rise in COVID-19 infections and should not expect the current rules to be eased quickly, German Minister of Economic Affairs and Energy Peter Altmaier told the weekly Bild am Sonntag.
“We’re not out of the woods yet,” he said, referring to infection numbers. “We cannot afford a yo-yo shutdown with the economy constantly opening and closing.”
Germany has imposed a set of measures dubbed a “lockdown light” to rein in the second wave of the pandemic that the country is seeing in common with much of the rest of Europe. While restaurants are closed, schools and shops so far remain open.
Photo: AFP
Data from Germany’s Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases yesterday showed that the number of confirmed cases increased by 16,947 to 790,503.
Weekend figures tend to be lower as not all data are reported by local authorities.
Altmaier said that Germany should be wary of relaxing restrictions too quickly.
“If we don’t want days with 50,000 new infections, as was the case in France a few weeks ago, we must see through this and not constantly speculate about which measures can be relaxed again,” he told the newspaper. “All countries that lifted their restrictions too early have so far paid a high price in terms of human lives lost.”
His comments echoed those of other leading German policy makers.
The German chairman of the World Medical Association, Frank Ulrich Montgomery, warned of a possible shortage of beds and staffing problems in hospitals.
“My forecast is that we will have to talk about further restrictions rather than any easing,” he told daily Augsburger Allgemeine.
German police on Saturday fired water cannon during an anti-lockdown rally in Frankfurt and eventually broke up the gathering as rules like wearing masks and socially distancing were not observed.
Elsewhere in Europe, Austria joined a growing trend announcing schools and non-essential shops would close from tomorrow, having imposed a partial lockdown two weeks ago.
“There are still many who say that infections don’t happen at school, in shops or services,” Austrian Chancellor Sebastien Kurtz said on Saturday. “But the truth is the authorities can no longer trace 77 percent of new infections, which means they no longer know where contamination is happening.”
Greece said it would shut all schools after imposing a nationwide night curfew from Friday.
In Italy, the regions of Tuscany and Campania plunged into “red zones” of tough restrictions, which now cover 26 million of the 60 million population.
The US, the country hardest hit by COVID-19, on Friday saw 188,858 more cases and 1,596 more deaths, Johns Hopkins University data showed.
Mexico on Saturday surpassed 1 million COVID-19 cases, registering 5,860 new infections over the previous day, the government said.
A total of 1,003,253 people have now tested positive for the virus in the country, Mexican Ministry of Health ministry official Ricardo Cortes said.
The death toll has reached 98,259, including 635 registered over the previous day, he added.
Mexico has the world’s fourth-highest death toll from the virus behind the US, Brazil and India, according to an Agence France-Presse tally based on official figures. It also has the 11th-highest number of infections.
“We probably still need to see the worst,” said Alejandro Macias, former national commissioner against the AH1N1 influenza pandemic in Mexico City in 2009.
Yesterday, Indonesia reported 4,106 new infections, taking the total caseload to 467,113, and recorded 63 deaths, data from the country’s COVID-19 task force showed.
Russia reported its second-highest total of new daily infections, 22,572.
Additional reporting by AFP and Bloomberg
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