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Finished: From 11 p.m. Berlin bars will be closed from the weekend
Photo: Sabine Gudath / imago images
In Australia there is the term "Six o'clock swill".
It goes back to the 20th century, when Australian hotels had to close their bars at 6 p.m.: Many workers rushed in in the last hour before to get excessively drunk.
At the weekend, the bars, restaurants and pubs in Frankfurt, Berlin and other German cities should close from 10 p.m. and 11 p.m. respectively.
It is a reaction to the increasing number of corona cases in some major German cities.
The 10 p.m. curfew has been in effect in Great Britain since September.
Numerous users made fun of the measure on Twitter.
They joked that the coronavirus was only active from ten a.m.
Or that you have to start drinking earlier.
Nevertheless, local politicians hope that the measure will limit sprawling parties and alcohol-related carelessness.
But even the head epidemiologist at the Helmholtz Center for Infection Research, Gérard Krause, doubts whether the curfew makes sense.
In the interview, he explains what the federal government should focus on in the coming winter months instead.
SPIEGEL:
Mr. Krause, the number of corona cases is rising dramatically again in Germany.
To avoid a shutdown like in March and April, there are now local curfews, alcohol sales bans or overnight stays for guests from hotspots.
Can these measures effectively contain the virus?
Krause:
I was torn back and forth a little.
If you cut operating times in principle, then that means that more customers could come together in a shorter time.
On the other hand, it can help to avoid that people, disinhibited by alcohol consumption, neglect the rules of hygiene in confined spaces.
SPIEGEL:
So curfew is not a common epidemiological tool?
Krause:
In any case, before 2020 I never saw that curfew hours were considered as an infection protection measure.
SPIEGEL:
And what would be a measure that would make sense from an epidemiological point of view?
Krause:
I don't want to rule out that it makes sense, but I am concerned that all of these discussions about alcohol bans, overnight stays and curfews divert our attention from a much more important point: the protection of risk groups.
SPIEGEL:
But if the number of infections in general remains low, that also protects the risk groups.
Krause:
Yes, it indirectly also lowers the exposure risk for the risk groups, but we also have to strengthen the direct protection of these groups.
I regret that protecting the elderly is not the focus of the debate.
Instead, we're talking about fines for individuals who write "Mickey Mouse" on their data sheet in the restaurant.
We work on school classes and small businesses instead of facing the challenges of directly protecting the elderly.
SPIEGEL:
Even younger people are now aware of severe courses and long-term consequences.
Don't you have to protect everyone?
Krause:
Yes, that is correct.
And in order to master this huge challenge, we have to start where our measures and resources promise the best effect.
We now know that the vast majority of young people without risk factors can survive an infection with Sars-CoV-2 well.
Older people, on the other hand, have a ten times higher risk of dying from this infection.
From an epidemiological point of view, we must therefore focus on these groups of people and protect them as best as possible.
Dealing with the pandemic is decided in the old people's homes and not in the classrooms of the schools or the foyers of the hotels.
SPIEGEL:
In March and April, visits to old people's and nursing homes were therefore banned.
The result is loneliness, depression and insecurity.
Is this the right way?
Krause:
No.
We have to ensure that they are protected and still participate in society.
This requires creativity, intelligence and money.
Above all: We cannot leave old people's homes and mobile care services alone with this challenge.
SPIEGEL:
Can you be more specific?
Krause:
That could be, for example, allowing visits to old people's and nursing homes, but trained nursing staff explain to all visitors how they can best behave, how to disinfect their hands, how to put on a face mask properly.
This is mostly common in hospitals, but not in old people's homes, because there is often a lack of resources.
SPIEGEL: In
the spring we already managed to reduce the number of infections with very strict measures.
Why not do exactly the same thing now?
Krause:
In the beginning, the strategy was to slow down the pandemic as much as possible in order to gain time: We had to upgrade hospitals, intensive care beds and the health authorities.
Masks had to be procured and hygiene concepts worked out.
At that point it was right, we were still unprepared.
Now we are in the middle of the pandemic and it cannot be stopped.
The focus now is on mitigating the damage: social, health and economic.
SPIEGEL:
If I understand you correctly, shouldn't the goal be to curb the overall number of cases?
Krause:
Containment in the sense of "stopping the spread" can no longer be the goal.
The virus is already everywhere.
Containment in the sense of "mitigate the consequences" - of course!
In my opinion, stopping the pandemic in the literal sense is simply not possible.
Arousing hopes in this direction threatens to generate disappointment and risks acceptance of the measures.
However, one can mitigate the damage caused by the pandemic by cleverly balancing the measures.
That should be the goal.
Because everything we do has a desired and an undesirable effect.
In the spring, the desired effect was that the number of serious illnesses in Germany remained quite low, and the undesirable effect was that many people got into economic crises, which will probably also have health consequences with a delay.
Perhaps that was inevitable back then.
But now we are in a different situation and have to try to keep the undesirable effects lower - with equally decisive but more targeted prevention strategies.
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