Enlarge image
Chancellor Angela Merkel (archive recording)
Photo: ODD ANDERSEN / AFP
Angela Merkel has again strongly advocated more vaccinations against the coronavirus.
"The pandemic is not about to subside, as some might have thought in the summer, but it will challenge us again now and in the coming weeks with great force," said her government spokesman Steffen Seibert on Wednesday in Berlin on behalf of the still-chancellor .
Merkel therefore also urged greater caution.
Nationwide agreed access rules to indoor areas only for vaccinated, convalescent and tested people (3G) would have to be consistently monitored from their point of view.
Regarding possible further measures, Seibert pointed out that 55.6 million people were fully vaccinated.
"Nobody is planning further restrictions for them now." If the situation worsens regionally, further restrictions are only possible for non-vaccinated people.
This would logically lead to 2G rules, i.e. access only for vaccinated and convalescent people - at least regionally.
It is up to the federal states to implement measures within this framework.
Merkel had already commented on further restrictions in the CDU executive committee on Tuesday, but ruled out a general lockdown.
From Merkel's point of view, it is particularly shocking that deaths are now also occurring in nursing homes. "It is basically hard to understand that in individual cases it is possible that unvaccinated employees are in contact with home residents without daily testing," said Seibert. The booster vaccinations planned for all residents since August have so far only been implemented for a few and now have to be administered at high pressure. Every home should make an active effort to do so. Test rules would have to ensure that unvaccinated employees or visitors could not endanger anyone.
Merkel is also concerned that more than 16 million adults and three million particularly vulnerable people over 60 are still not vaccinated - despite information and low-threshold offers.
Seibert renewed the Executive Chancellor's offer for a corona meeting with the Prime Ministers of the federal states.
as / dpa
