Germany, where criticism is mounting against a vaccination campaign deemed too slow, is preparing on Tuesday January 5 to extend its restrictions against the Covid-19 pandemic, including the closure of schools.
Chancellor Angela Merkel and the sixteen regional states are expected to decide by videoconference that these limitations be extended beyond January 10.
A majority of regions would be in favor of an extension until January 31.
Businesses, with the exception of grocery stores and pharmacies, schools and kindergartens, cultural venues should therefore keep their doors closed in the weeks to come.
Employers are encouraged to favor telework at all costs.
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Considered a European “good pupil” in the management of the first epidemic wave, Germany now has all the trouble to contain the virus, in particular in the Länder of the former GDR.
The threshold of 1,000 daily deaths was crossed for the first time on December 30.
Some 1.775 million cases have been identified in total since the start of the pandemic, which has killed more than 34,000.
And the impact of going on vacation and family reunions is not yet known, warn health authorities.
"There is little room for flexibility,"
government spokesman Steffen Seibert summed up Monday.
The “historic” coronavirus crisis is set to continue in 2021, Angela Merkel warned on December 31 in her last New Year's greetings as chancellor.
The situation remains particularly critical in Saxony, a former GDR state-region for a long time resistant to restrictions, the incidence rate of which reached Monday 323. Other regions of East Germany, such as Thuringia and Brandenburg, region surrounding Berlin, are also hit hard.
An extension of the restrictions is thus deemed
"inevitable"
by the Minister President of Saxony, the conservative Michael Kretschmer, who still castigated "hysteria" of anti-Covid measures a few weeks ago.
Anti-masks and conspirators
Cited as an example before the summer, Germany, where an anti-mask movement has emerged combining vaccine-resistant, followers of conspiracy theories and far-right activists, has not managed since September to take effective measures against the coronavirus.
Angela Merkel, whose popularity remains very high with less than a year of her departure from the chancellery, was unable in early autumn to impose stricter measures on regions worried about the loss of 'economic activity.
The management of the second wave thus borders on
"great failure"
, according to the daily
Die Welt
, pointing to
"hesitation, quarrels over competences and strategic errors"
.
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In addition to the restrictions, Germany is relying heavily on the vaccination campaign launched on Saturday to stem the epidemic.
More than 264,000 elderly people and nursing staff received a first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine on Monday.
If the vaccination rate is much faster than a number of European neighbors, in particular France, voices are being raised in Germany to criticize its slowness.
Some 44% of Germans would not be convinced by the vaccine strategy, against 40% thinking the opposite, according to a Civey poll.
The daily
Bild
, the most widely read in Germany, is leading a campaign against the government, accused of having
"relied too much on the European Union"
in its vaccination strategy and its supply, and of favoring the only product Pfizer-BioNTech to the detriment of the Moderna vaccine.
"We cannot make our impatience the measure of everything and snatch the vaccine from the inhabitants of the poorest regions of the world,"
retorts the President of the Bundestag, Wolfgang Schaüble, to those who demand that Germany be a priority to receive the vaccine developed by the German BioNTech.
Germany will be able to bet, according to the Ministry of Health, on a combined total of more than 140 million doses of BioNTech and Moderna vaccines.
Some 670,000 doses are expected to be delivered on January 8 by BioNTech.
The government is also studying the possibility of extending the period between the two injections as much as possible to allow the vaccination of more patients before the stock runs out.