German states cancel all Christmas markets in bid to contain soaring infections
MUNICH, Germany: The German states of Bavaria and Saxony on Friday cancelled all their Christmas markets and unveiled drastic curbs on public life as the country scrambles to contain soaring coronavirus infections.
“The situation is very, very serious and difficult,” Markus Soeder, premier of the southern state of Bavaria, said as he also announced a shutdown of clubs, bars and night service at restaurants.
The eastern state of Saxony unveiled similar measures and went even further by closing all sporting and cultural venues, banning tourism, public consumption of alcohol and barring the unvaccinated from non-essential shops and hairdressers.
Saxony premier Michael Kretschmer – whose state has Germany’s lowest vaccination rate at just under 60 per cent of the population – admitted that many of the restrictions would affect the vaccinated as well.
But he said tough action was needed to keep hospitals from being overwhelmed and called for “solidarity” from all citizens.
“We need more ‘we’ and less ‘I’ in this pandemic,” he told reporters.
Bavaria and Saxony are among the hardest hit regions in the ferocious fourth Covid-19 wave sweeping Germany.
While Germany had a weekly incidence rate of 340.7 recorded infections per 100,000 people on Friday, according to the Robert Koch Institute health agency, the figure was far higher in Saxony (593.6) and Bavaria (625.3).
The Bavarian state capital of Munich on Tuesday had become the first major German city to cancel its Christmas market for the second year in a row. Saxony’s cancellations means the famed Dresden Christmas market is also scrapped.
Germany hosts some 2,500 Christmas markets each year, cherished by visitors who come to savour mulled wine and roasted chestnuts, and shop for seasonal trinkets among clusters of wooden chalets.
In pre-pandemic times, they drew about 160 million domestic and international visitors annually who brought in revenues of three to five billion euros (US$3.4 billion to US$5.6 billion), according to the BSM stallkeepers’ industry association.
Konrad Friedrich, who plies his trade at the Bamberg market, said he could understand the decision given the explosion in infections.