Merkel: Decisions on more Covid-19 measures needed before Christmas

Berlin (dpa) – German Chancellor Angela Merkel believes decisions will have to be taken before Christmas on further measures to contain the coronavirus pandemic, members of her party told dpa following a videoconference on Monday.

Chancellor Angela Merkel told party colleagues on Monday that existing lockdown measures in place in Germany would not be sufficient to get the country through the winter, participants at the meeting said.

“Relying on hope won’t help us,” she told legislators from her conservative bloc in a discussion of the rising numbers of coronavirus cases in Germany, participants at the meeting said.

“The situation is getting very serious: these measures will not be enough to get us through the winter,” the participants quoted her as saying, implying that a further tightening of restrictions would be needed.

A partial lockdown and social distancing rules in place since the start of November have slowed, but not stopped the spread of the disease.

Federal and state politicians are demanding tougher restrictions on hotspots with very high corona infection rates. A further meeting of federal and state governments before Christmas is also on the agenda.

So far, a new Minister President’s Conference is planned for 4 January. On Sunday evening, the head of the Chancellery, Helge Braun, confirmed the goal of falling below the mark of 50 new infections per 100,000 inhabitants per week.

Braun said in the “Bild” talk “The right questions” that “at least in the hotspots we will have to make really clearer distinctions”. If the federal states were prepared to do something together against the hotspots, then the federal government would be immediately involved, said Braun.

(Reporting by Andreas Rinke, writing by Thomas Escritt; Editing by Paul Carrel)