Germany launches first mini-lockdown
As 1,550 slaughterhouse staff contract Covid...
GERMaNY was forced to re-impose a localised lockdown yesterday.
Restrictions are being brought back for the 360,000 population of a city in the west of the country after a coronavirus outbreak at a meat-processing plant.
Bars, museums, galleries, cinemas, gyms and swimming pools are to be closed in Guetersloh for at least a week, while picnics and barbecues are banned.
The announcement was made by armin Laschet, the premier of the western German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, who had led calls for the country to ease lockdown measures.
He said yesterday: ‘This is a limited measure of caution. We will lift the measure as soon as possible, when we have certainty about the safety of the infection.
‘It is a preventative measure. We will get a better picture of the situation through intensive testing, and can then see more clearly within seven days what the situation is.’
More than 1,550 of the 7,000strong workforce at the Toennies slaughterhouse in nearby RhedaWiedenbrueck have tested positive for coronavirus and thousands more workers and family members have been put in quarantine to try to halt the outbreak. The plant’s billionaire owner Clemens Toennies, nicknamed the ‘Pig Baron’, has apologised for the outbreak – but the firm is facing anger over alleged ‘exploitation’ of the many Eastern European migrants who work there
‘Risk of a second wave’
and live in crowded lodgings. Mr Laschet is a leading contender to succeed Chancellor angela Merkel when her fourth term in office expires next year, but further outbreaks of the virus in his state – the country’s most populous – could damage his chances.
The head of the Robert Koch Institute for public health, Lothar Wieler, said yesterday the coronavirus reproduction rate in Germany was currently estimated at 2.76, probably mainly due to several local outbreaks.
a so-called R-rate of 2.76 means that 100 people who contracted the virus infect, on average, 276 others. Professor Wieler said Germany was at risk of a second coronavirus wave but added he was optimistic it could be prevented.