Germany won’t relax coronavirus restrictions before April 20

THE head of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s office said that measures to restrict the spread of coronavirus in the country won’t be lifted before April 20. “We are not talking about any easing until April 20. Until then all measures will remain in place,” Helge Braun told the Tagesspiegel newspaper in an interview published on Friday.

Older people would have to stick to restrictions on movement and interpersonal contact for much longer than younger people.

“All models have one thing in common, no matter what we decide: that the elderly and immunocompromised people in our society must be effectively protected against infection until a vaccine is available,” Braun said.

The top official said he wants to follow a similar approach to how South Korea is tackling the pandemic, using digital tracking to alert people if they have had contact with infected persons.

He noted Germany has already imposed the same restrictions on contact and has high rates of testing for the virus. Merkel and the premiers of Germany’s 16 states are to discuss the latest figures and developments this week, Braun told dpa. Some in Germany are beginning to ask about exit scenarios. Georg Maier, who heads a committee of state interior ministers, told Die Welt newspaper that people would have to stick to the current restrictions but that they might reach their limits after more than four weeks.

He said countries such as South Korea and Sweden had opted for mass testing and isolation of those infected, and that Germany should consider such an approach.