Europe watches German lockdown for tactics in containing new clusters
MORE than 640,000 people are back under lockdown in Germany this weekend as Europe faces its first major test in containing fresh outbreaks after lockdowns were lifted.
Leaders and scientists are watching north-western Germany closely as the state battles to contain the virus and provide a template for suppressing inevitable clusters that are to become the new normal for countries that reopen.
The outbreak among staff at a pig slaughterhouse jolted the continent.
But in Berlin cautious optimism is already beginning to emerge that Germany may have contained the worst of it – and found a new way to manage the disease.
For while more than 1,550 employees at the Tönnies warehouse in Rheda-Wiedenbrück have now tested positive, and more than 100 of their immediate family members are reportedly infected, so far the evidence is that the outbreak has spread remarkably little beyond the abattoir.
In Warendorf, one of two neighbouring districts in the region of North Rhine-Westphalia placed back under lockdown this week, only 25 people have so far tested positive for the virus.
And in Gütersloh, the district where the slaughterhouse is situated, only three people outside the staff and their families have tested positive.
The German R number, which briefly jumped to 2.88 last Sunday, has since dropped back to 0.57, a significant relief.
When the World Health Organisation warned of a new wave in Europe this week, Germany was one of the few countries it singled out for praise.
“Where new clusters of cases appeared, these have been controlled through rapid and targeted interventions. This is very good news,” said Hans Kluge, the WHO Europe director.
Germany is not alone in battling a second surge. The WHO listed 11 countries – including Sweden and Ukraine – where the threat could lead to healthcare systems being overwhelmed.
In Lisbon, the lockdown has been reimposed, with residents in 19 of its 24 districts only allowed to leave home to work or shop for essentials. In the rest of the city, gatherings are limited to 10 people. At the start of the crisis, Portugal was praised as a “miracle” for keeping the outbreak under control.
Croatia also announced new restrictions, imposing a mandatory 14-day quarantine on arrivals from Serbia, Kosovo, North Macedonia and Bosnia. The decision comes after an increase in cases in the Balkans, some linked to a tennis tournament organised by Novak Djokovic, the world number one, who himself tested positive afterwards.
Germany has managed its outbreak with a strict quarantine for slaughterhouse staff, a lockdown for the surrounding area, and intensive testing.
More than 9,500 tests have been carried out, but there are plans to scale up to 10,000 tests a day.
But the intervention has not been without controversy. The new lockdown is not particularly strict – one administrator described it as “lockdown lite”. People can still move about freely and meet a person from another household. Bars, cinemas and gyms are closed, but restaurants remain open.
But moves by other German regions to ban people from the affected area from entering have provoked anger, and there have been reports of clashes between regional governments behind closed doors. The mayor of Gütersloh made a dramatic appeal to Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, to intervene on Friday, saying his citizens were being “punished and marginalised”.
“Here, almost three-quarters of a million people feel abandoned, stigmatised and even attacked,” Henning Schulz said. “It isn’t possible to test 360,000 people at once. It takes time. When I hear from neighbouring cities, for God’s sake, that all the infected will come from Gütersloh and spread the virus in our outdoor pools, that’s a statement I cannot accept.”
The trouble began when the holiday island of Usedom, off the north-eastern coast, sent a family from Gütersloh home for fear they might be infected.
Since then several regions have imposed restrictions, ranging from 14day quarantines or no overnight stays for those from the area to an outright ban. The situation has been exacerbated by the fact that the school holidays are about to start in North Rhine-Westphalia, and many families fear they will not be able to travel.
Many are desperate to get a negative test and testing stations have seen enormous queues in recent days.
“I’m standing in line on my birthday because I have to pick up my 13-yearold son from the island of Rügen at the weekend and I’m afraid that I won’t be able to enter without a negative test,” Tina Hartmann, a local mother, told Bild newspaper this week.
“We have been planning a holiday in Denmark and have no idea whether we’ll be able go,” said Patrick Aiemer.
There has been particular anger that other German regions are refusing to accept people from the region, and there is even talk of North Rhine-Westphalia issuing retaliatory bans.
There is considerable public anger against Tönnies, the company that owns the slaughterhouse, amid allegations that it ignored social distancing rules and that migrant workers from Eastern Europe were housed in overcrowded and unsanitary apartments.
Hubertus Heil, the employment minister, said the firm would be held liable for damages from the outbreak.
But it is not the only meat industry business to suffer an outbreak and scientists believe the air conditioning systems many use may play a role. Meat processing and packing plants must be kept cold but the air is rarely filtered. It is repeatedly pumped through the facilities, chilled to a temperature at which the virus appears to thrive.
If the outbreak in Gütersloh appears to be under control, attention is shifting to others around the country. Some 1,100 employees at a turkey slaughterhouse in Oldenburg are in quarantine after 46 tested positive, and 82 people have tested positive at a kebab meat processing plant in Moers.
Meanwhile, a number of apartment blocks in Berlin have been put under quarantine after scores of people living in them tested positive.