Germany will introduce a lockdown light on Monday. Chancellor Angela Merkel and the leaders of the sixteen states decided this on Wednesday. For example, the catering industry will be locked and the culture houses will close, but the schools will remain open.
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This is a ‘lockdown light’ that comes close to the measures during the first corona wave. The intention is to control the increasing number of infections by means of contact restrictions and to ensure that people can celebrate Christmas with the family, it sounds.
For example, families are only allowed to meet if they are no more than ten and it concerns no more than two households. Restaurants, bars, clubs, discotheques and cafes will close. Home delivery or collection is still allowed.
Theater, opera, concert halls, cinemas and the like must close, as well as fitness studios and swimming pools. Supermarkets remain open, but shopping regulations are getting stricter. Schools and childcare will remain open. Hairdressers are also allowed to continue working.
Amateur sports matches may no longer continue, the training sessions have also been canceled. Individual sports, such as jogging, are still allowed. Professional sports competitions may continue, but without an audience.
“We need to act now,” Merkel said. “Our health system is up to the challenge today, but at the rate at which infections are increasing, it will reach its capacity limit within a few weeks.”
“November will be the month of truth,” Treasury Secretary Olaf Scholz wrote on Twitter. “The increasing number of infections is forcing us to take measures so that we can break the second wave.”
The new measures will apply at least until the end of November.
Germany registered 11,409 new infections in a 24-hour period on Tuesday, a huge increase compared to the same day last week when 6,868 infections were added to the total caseload. More than 10,000 people have died of covid-19, according to the Robert Koch Institute, the national agency for disease control.
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