Icon: enlarge
A spring like it used to be?
More citizens would like easing from March 7th
Photo: Anadolu Agency / Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
Germany will remain in a shutdown until March 7th - and then what?
The currently applicable contact rules are apparently no longer sufficient to further contain the infection process.
The number of infections has stagnated for days.
Not only the Chancellor sees Germany in the third wave of pandemics, scientists are warning of highly contagious virus mutations.
However, there are also voices in favor of less stringent requirements, such as the Rhineland-Palatinate Prime Minister Malu Dreyer (SPD).
Your party colleague, Berlin's governing mayor Michael Müller, has promised a corresponding step-by-step plan for the exit from the shutdown up to the federal-state meeting on March 3, "definitely".
Several federal states have already submitted such plans.
And calls for relaxed opening and contact rules are also increasing among the population.
Almost half of Germans now want this.
This is shown by a representative survey by the opinion research institute Civey for SPIEGEL.
According to this, 49 percent of people in Germany hope that the applicable rules will be softened when the Chancellor and Prime Ministers decide on the period after March 7th next Wednesday.
Before the previous crisis meeting between the Chancellor and the country leaders, 41 percent had called for this.
A majority of Germans at the time believed the worst of the pandemic was over.
In comparison, fewer Germans would like to keep the current rules: 31 percent would like this to be the result of the upcoming federal-state summit.
Before the decisions in mid-February, 40 percent had supported the government's shutdown course.
The proportion of those who would like stricter rules to contain the pandemic remained constant at 15 percent.
The desire for more openings varies greatly depending on the party-political preference.
Nevertheless, it increased across all camps.
Supporters of the coalition parties CDU, CSU and SPD - but also the Greens - would like 38 or 37 percent easing for March.
However, a majority of the supporters of these parties are against easing or tightening the shutdown.
The voters of the FDP, AfD and left are much more skeptical of the current rules.
There is a clear majority in favor of relaxation.
57 percent of left-wing supporters are in favor of this.
With people who support the AfD (87 percent) and FDP (90 percent), the desire for a relaxed shutdown is even more widespread.
In the past, preferences were similarly distributed between the parties - however, the desire for loosening was lower across parties than before the decisions now pending.
Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) recently continued to plead for restraint.
In an online meeting of the Union faction in the Bundestag, she warned on Tuesday to be careful.
The Chancellor also said she advocated cautious opening steps in combination with more testing options.
However, a 7-day incidence value of 35 is provided for this.
At the moment it does not look like this should be achieved across the board.
Read the background to the Civey method here.
Icon: The mirror
Irishman