HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS BACK IN LOCKDOWN

German authorities ordered a new lockdown Tuesday in the area surrounding a slaughterhouse that was the scene of a serious outbreak of coronavirus among workers.

More than 370,000 people in the city of Gutersloh and surrounding areas, about 400 kilometres southwest of Berlin, were put under renewed lockdown measures, including a ban on contact with more than one person at a time from outside their own household.

Schools, nurseries, bars, cinemas and gyms were all closed. Restaurants were allowed to stay open but only for single households to sit together.

It follows an outbreak among workers at the Tonnies pig slaughterhouse nearby in Rheda-wiedenbruck, where 1,553 people tested positive in a week.

There were only 24 cases outside the slaughterhouse but Armin Laschet, the regional prime minister, ordered the lockdown as a precaution. The favourite to succeed Angela Merkel as chancellor of Germany had led calls for an early end to the national lockdown and resisted ordering local measures in Gutersloh for several days. But as cases mounted his hand was forced.