Deutsche Welle (English edition)
Bavaria plans coronavirus curfews in some hotspots — even at New Year
Facing persistently high case numbers, Bavaria's cabinet is planning Germany's toughest pandemic strictures from next Wednesday, even including night curfews. The state of Thuringia is also pondering tougher rules.
Bavaria, Germany's 13-million southern region, with its third-highest new infection metrics, faces tougher controls from Wednesday, including local curfews in hotspots and partial school closures.
Emerging from a Bavarian cabinet video conference Sunday, state premier Markus Söder said older school classes — from grade 8 onwards — would alternate between attending school or being taught remotely, especially if infection rates rose.
Germany's current "partial lockdown" meeting limit of five persons from two households would be relaxed in Bavaria only for 4 days over Christmas — to 10 persons — but not for New Year, he announced.
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Bavarians would be asked to stay home unless for valid reasons such as grocery shopping, visiting the doctor or attending work, said Söder, from the Christian Social Union (CSU) — the sister party of Chancellor Angela
Merkel's conservatives in Bavaria.
In "coronavirus hotspots," night-time curfews would apply from 9 p.m. until 5 a.m. Three such locations are the the Regensburg area and the cities of Passau and Nuremberg.
Bavaria's Munich- based assembly would be asked on Tuesday to ratify the moves.
That would bind Söder's cabinet partners, the Free Voters (Freie Wähler), conservatives led by economy minister HubertAiwanger, who in October had encouraged Bavarians to go skiing and "not let the joy of living be spoiled."
"We must do more, we must act," insisted Söder Sunday as
nationwide some intensive care wards neared capacity, with 482 deaths reported on Saturday.
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"The situation is unfortunately serious," said Söder, reiterating his stance that Germany's partial lockdown, introduced by early November by state premiers and Chancellor Angela Merkel, had proven insufficient
Last week total case numbers passed the one-million mark, with new cases topping 20,000 a day. Sunday's 17,767 figure was up markedly on last Sunday's 14,611 cases.
Karl Lauterbach, health expert for Germany's Social Democrats (SPD) who are partners in Merkel's federal cabinet, on Sunday endorsed Bavaria's moves.
Hesitant Thuringia ponders too
Bodo Ramalow, the Left party premier of Thüringia state, who in the past had cautioned to stay proportional in response, was on Sunday quoted as intimating his cabinet too would not relax contact rules over Christmas and New Year.
Read more: COVID-19: Protests and death threats in east German hotspot
"There will be no relief for Christmas and New Year," he reportedly told the Thüringer
Zeitung newspaper.
His chancellery chief Benjamin-Imanuel Hoff in a tweet said Ramalow's cabinet would on Wednesday discuss the viral spread "in view especially of the very high infection numbers on [Thuringia's] the borders with Saxony and Bavaria."
Germany's benchmark Robert Koch Institute on Sunday ranked Bavaria third among Länder with the highest new infection rates — or incidence — over the past seven days — at 175 per 100,000 inhabitants.
Worst affected was Saxony state on 301, followed by Berlin city-state on 182, with Thuringia state on 167 per 100,000 inhabitants.
Located in Thuringia is Hildburghausen, a county ranked by the RKI as Germany's fourth-worst corona hotspot, where anti-lockdown protestors last week marched singing until dispersed by police using pepper spray.
Two hotspots in Saxony state are the counties of Eastern Ore Mountains ( Osterzgebirge) and Bautzen, both also far above 400 per 100,000 inhabitants.
Meanwhile, Saxony's state premier Michael Kretschmer, of Merkel's Christian Democrats, told Germany ZDF public television on Sunday that his cabinet in Dresden would need to readjust its policy for coronavirus hotspots.
ipj/rc (dpa, KNA, AFP, Reuters)