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So it was at a Christmas market in Hamburg in 2012, what will 2020 be like?
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Angelika Warmuth / dpa
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Söder: Christmas markets with less alcohol consumption due to Corona
9.11 a.m.:
Bavaria's Prime Minister Markus Söder can imagine Christmas markets this year despite the corona pandemic - with mask compulsory and less alcohol.
"You have to come up with clever concepts for the Christmas markets. You can, for example, define walking routes with entrance and exit, you have to operate with a mask requirement and you will have to reduce alcohol consumption significantly," he said CSU head of the "Welt am Sonntag".
"Then I can imagine the Christmas markets, which are, however, different from the normal ones - and only if the regional infection rate allows it."
Federal Health Minister Jens Spahn (CDU) recently said that if it were possible to provide Christmas markets with hygiene, spacing and masks without questioning their character, that could certainly also happen.
Appeal to the UN: take stronger action against hunger and poverty due to the pandemic
9.00 a.m.:
Because the pandemic is also worsening the global food situation, the children's aid organization World Vision is calling for more engagement against hunger, poverty and inequality.
She made this appeal to the world community on the Sunday before the events for the 75th birthday of the United Nations in New York.
According to this, 820 million people worldwide are currently suffering from hunger.
Every seventh child under the age of five is underweight.
"The pandemic will hit countries in the Global South particularly hard," World Vision predicted.
The goal of finally putting an end to the avoidable death of children is far from being achieved, complained Marwin Meier of World Vision Germany.
In 2019 alone, 5.2 million children died before the age of five as a result of hunger, pneumonia, complications during childbirth, diarrhea and malaria.
"The secondary consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic will unfortunately continue to set us back," said Meier. "Paused vaccination campaigns, overloaded health systems and interrupted child nutrition programs are jeopardizing the progress that has been hard-won so far.
Once again, the weakest of mankind are hit hardest. "
NHL plans with 82 season games - but with a later start
8.50 a.m.:
Despite the crisis, the North American professional ice hockey league NHL plans in the coming season with the full program of 82 main round games for each club, but the start will probably be postponed further.
"We expect a full season, 82 games, full play-offs," said NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman on Saturday (local time).
The planned start date on December 1 could be postponed to the end of the year or January 2021.
"There is still so much we don't know," said Bettman. "Nobody can tell me if the border between Canada and the US will be open on any given date. Nobody can tell me how the situation with COVID- 19. Nobody can tell me whether we can have partially or completely filled arenas. "
In the US, the number of infections is still extremely high.
Therefore, the NHL may have to start the new season with ghost games.
The play-offs were played in the "bubbles" Toronto and Edmonton without spectators.
The final series in Edmonton will also take place in front of empty stands.
Philologists 'Association: parents' evenings are important right now
8.45 a.m.:
Parents' evenings are important right now from the perspective of the German Association of Philologists.
There is a great need for coordination, said the chairwoman of the association, Susanne Lin-Klitzing, of the German press agency.
Whether a digital parents' evening is a good alternative must always be weighed up.
"Where parents do not yet know each other, where parent representatives are elected, a digital parents 'evening is probably not a good substitute. Where digital possibilities are available and consent has been established, experience should be gained with digital parents' evenings."
Ilka Hoffmann, GEW board member for the school sector, finds online parents' evenings difficult.
"Some parents cannot technically cope with a video conference. Even among teachers, the skills are very different. That also excludes some people," she said.
A parents' evening at any price is not needed in Corona times.
"Parents' evenings are primarily intended to provide information. And otherwise not all parents always come."
A well-worded and clearly understandable letter might be enough.
"And if someone has any questions, he calls."
Before general UN debate: Equitable distribution of vaccines demanded
8.32 a.m.:
The development organization One has called on the world community to work together to ensure that future vaccines are distributed
fairly
.
"Vaccination nationalism is like a poison - and that is the last thing we need right now," said the German One director Stephan Exo-Kreischer with a view to the general debate beginning Tuesday in New York on the 75th anniversary of the United Nations.
In the pandemic, many governments seemed to forget "that there are no national solutions to global challenges," lamented Exo-Kreischer.
Many countries did business with pharmaceutical companies to secure privileges in a vaccine.
"Hardly anyone thinks about how this vaccine can also be made available to the people who are most affected by poverty."
On average, new drugs have so far arrived in developing countries with a delay of seven years.
"We call on the world community to finally pull together," said Exo-Kreischer.
"Specifically, this means that the rich industrialized countries in particular take money into their hands and invest it in the Covax initiative."
In this project, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the global alliances Gavi and Cepi are working on developing a vaccine and making it available to the countries most affected by poverty - and at an affordable price.
"Germany can take a leading role here by setting a good example and providing financial support for this international vaccination initiative," said Exo-Kreischer.
Less shipping traffic: Pink dolphins are returning to Hong Kong
8.00 a.m.:
Pink dolphins are returning to the waters around Hong Kong due to reduced shipping traffic in the crisis.
Container ships and ferries usually crowd around the Chinese Special Administrative Region.
Now the sea creatures, which have become rare in the region, are being spotted with increasing frequency.
The mammals, also known as the Chinese white dolphin, are gradually returning to Hong Kong after Covid-19 restrictions reduced noise levels and improved habitat conditions for the animals, scientists from the Hong Kong newspaper South China Morning Post reported.
Marine researchers at St. Andrews University in the UK told the Hong Kong newspaper that sightings of the rare dolphins had increased by 30 percent.
According to the researchers, the calmer waters allowed the dolphins to congregate in larger groups and socialize more, allowing for a more detailed study of the mammals' behavior.
The dolphins, which get their pink hue from visible blood vessels, are native to the Pearl River estuary west of Hong Kong and are also found in the waters around Macau, Taiwan, and Singapore.
Because of the increasingly dense shipping traffic, their sightings decreased over the years.
Scheuer announces a summit meeting to save the aviation industry
7.14 a.m.:
Transport Minister Andreas Scheuer is planning a summit to deal with the consequences of the pandemic for the aviation industry.
The focus is apparently on the regional airports.
1345 new corona infections registered in Germany
7:00 a.m.:
As expected, the Robert Koch Institute reported a comparatively low number of new infections on Sunday.
The health authorities had transmitted 1345 cases within one day, as the RKI announced in the morning.
Experience shows that the number of cases reported is usually lower on Sundays and Mondays, also because not all health authorities report data to the RKI at the weekend.
On Saturday, the highest value since April was reached with 2297 new corona infections.
The peak of new infections reported daily was at more than 6000 at the end of March / beginning of April.
The number then tended to fall and rose again in July.
In August the number of cases was just over 2000 (2034).
The number of new infections detected also depends on how many people are tested.
According to the RKI figures, at least 271,415 people in Germany have been proven to have been infected with the Sars-CoV-2 virus since the beginning of the crisis.
According to the RKI, the number of deaths related to an infection is 9386 - that is two deaths more than the previous day.
By Sunday morning, around 240,700 people had survived the infection.
According to RKI estimates in Germany, the number of reproductions, or R value for short, was 1.27 (previous day: 1.16) according to the management report on Saturday.
This means that one infected person infects a little more than one other person on average.
The R-value depicts the infection rate about one and a half weeks beforehand.
In addition, the RKI gives a so-called seven-day R in its current situation report.
The value relates to a longer period of time and is therefore less subject to daily fluctuations.
According to RKI estimates, this value was 1.24 (previous day: 1.21).
It shows the infection process from eight to 16 days ago.
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sak / dpa / afp / Reuters