Germany reverses strict lockdown plan
CHANCELLOR Angela Merkel has dropped plans for a five-day shutdown in Germany over Easter.
Mrs Merkel announced the decision after a hastily arranged video conference yesterday with Germany’s 16 state governors, who are responsible for imposing and lifting restrictions.
The same group, faced with rising coronavirus infections, had come up with the unexpected plan for deeper restrictions over Easter, which was announced early on Tuesday.
The plan was to make Thursday next week – the day before Good Friday – a “rest day”, with all shops closed, and allow only supermarkets to open on Easter Saturday.
Since the Friday and Monday are already national holidays, that would have created a five-day shutdown of public life – on top of existing
lockdown restrictions, which were extended through to April 18.
The plan had raised many questions about logistical details and also was criticised because there had been no public discussion of it before it emerged following lengthy haggling.
“The idea of an Easter shutdown was drawn up with the best intentions, because we must urgently manage to slow and reverse the third wave of the pandemic,” Mrs Merkel said.
“However, the idea... was a mistake – there were good reasons for it but it could not be implemented well enough in this short time.”
“This is my mistake alone, because in the end I bear ultimate responsibility,” she told reporters.
“At the same time, of course I know that this whole matter triggers more uncertainty – I regret that deeply and I apologise to all citizens,” she said.
Mrs Merkel then extended the apology to parliament in a previously scheduled question-andanswer session.
Marco Buschmann, the pro-business Free Democrats’ chief whip, said Mrs Merkel’s apology won
“broad respect” but pressed her to turn to parliament to manage the pandemic rather than making decisions with small groups of officials.
Mrs Merkel responded that the negotiations with state governors are necessary. Infection numbers in Germany have been rising again as the more contagious variant of the virus that was first detected in Britain has become dominant in the country. Germany has registered more than 75,000 deaths since the start of the pandemic.
The country’s disease control centre also reported 15,815 new infection cases in the past 24 hours – a week ago there were 13,435.
Belgium is reintroducing a strict lockdown in response to a worrying surge of new infections, schools would close and residents would have limited access to non-essential businesses.