Coronavirus: Germany reintroduces local containment for the first time

Germany announced Tuesday June 23 for the first time a local reconfiguration linked to the new coronavirus after the appearance of an outbreak of contamination in a large slaughterhouse where more than 1500 cases of infections have been detected.

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"We will reintroduce containment throughout the canton of Gütersloh" , which has about 360,000 inhabitants in the west of the country, said the leader of the region, North Rhine-Westphalia, Armin Laschet. This reconfiguration, initially planned until June 30, will result in the strict limitation of contacts between people, the closing of bars, cinemas, museums, the prohibition of leisure activities in closed spaces.

7000 people placed in quarantine

Restaurants may remain open but will only welcome customers from the same household, said Laschet, potential successor to Angela Merkel and candidate for the leadership of their party, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in December. next. These drastic measures, which take place ten days before the start of the school holidays in this densely populated and highly industrialized region, aim to "calm the situation" and "increase testing" for screening.

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Germany, hitherto relatively untouched by the virus unlike its European partners like France, Italy or Spain, has been in shock since the discovery of a major source of contamination in what is presented as the largest slaughterhouse in Europe, Tönnies. It employs around Gütersloh 6,700 people, many of them from Bulgaria and Romania. On Monday evening, local authorities announced that 1,553 people were infected with Covid-19 in the canton. Some 7,000 people have been quarantined, 21 hospitalized and 6 are in intensive care.

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