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President Macron, Chancellor Merkel
Photo: John Thys / DPA
Once a week, usually on Tuesday afternoon, the federal government's corona crisis team connects via video conference.
The body does not play a major role in public; the public is more interested in the meetings between the Prime Minister and the Chancellor.
But said crisis team, which met for the 60th time this week, has been performing a central task in combating the pandemic for a year.
The senior officials advise, for example, which countries or regions are classified as “risk areas”, “high incidence areas” or “virus variant areas”.
The Robert Koch Institute officially announces which countries are considered particularly dangerous, but the decisions are prepared by the crisis team and made by the Federal Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry of Health and the Foreign Office.
One would think that these classifications are based on clear numbers.
But this is by no means always the case.
This is borne out by protocols from the crisis team that SPIEGEL was able to see.
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