Saturday, January 23, 2021
New CDU boss on corona crisis
Laschet: Health is more important than education
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The new CDU chairman Laschet warns of the new virus variant from Great Britain. Therefore schools should now also remain closed. He fears the consequences of the pandemic will keep the country busy for a long time to come.
According to the new CDU chairman and North Rhine-Westphalian Prime Minister Armin Laschet, the corona pandemic will keep Germany busy for a long time. “Even if the pandemic is over, not everything will be good. Because then the financial, economic and all other consequences of Corona really come to light,” Laschet told the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung”. Laschet also warned of the unpredictability of virus mutants.
The new CDU chief underlined the need to weigh the damage caused by the corona measures, especially for children and their educational opportunities, with health protection. In the phase of uncertainty, however, the latter must have absolute priority. “The developments in Ireland and Great Britain must be a warning to us,” said Laschet.
Because of the more contagious and, according to the British government, possibly also more deadly virus variant B.1.1.7, the development of a long-term concept in corona policy is difficult, said Laschet. The concrete development of the pandemic is “difficult to predict, especially with the highly contagious new mutation”.
“Extreme caution”
Although the incidence in Germany is currently falling, the new mutated virus is unpredictable. “How it will work, how quickly it will work and in which groups it will work, no one can finally make a well-founded prediction today. Therefore, extreme caution is required,” Laschet emphasized.
The new virus variant had first spread in London and southern England. Great Britain was already one of the countries in the world most severely affected by the corona pandemic, and the mutant caused the number of infections to jump again. According to the World Health Organization, B.1.1.7 has now been detected in around 60 countries, including Germany. According to experts, the virus variant is up to 70 percent more contagious than the original coronavirus.
The spread of the mutant is one reason that the corona restrictions have recently been tightened again in Germany and other countries. In addition, a significantly more contagious coronavirus mutant has appeared in South Africa, which has now been detected in more than 20 countries, including Germany.
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