How Germany will deal with the second Covid wave
The Merkel government announces new measures to deal with the second wave of the pandemic in Germany. Here are which ones. The in-depth study by Pierluigi Mennitti from Berlin
Keep businesses, kindergartens and schools open as much as possible. This is the priority of the German government in the face of the second wave of Covid 19 which is tracing the infections also in Germany. The three things are held together: without kindergartens and schools open, the commitment of families to keep their children at home would also flood the machine of work. To achieve this and prevent a second general lockdown from aggravating the state of an already tried economy, the government has decided to reintroduce a series of measures that regulate social behavior. Preventive measures to prevent infections from growing exponentially again, said Angela Merkel , and take the situation out of control, as had happened last March.
The new rules were announced at the end of the online summit between the chancellor and the presidents of the 16 Länder. It is the format that had managed the crisis in the dramatic weeks of March and April, necessary to find a common thread since many competences are regional.
The real urgency of the moment is to put a stop to ceremonies and private parties, such as birthdays and weddings, from which the most numerous and difficult to trace outbreaks come. The model adopted for the reduction of personal contacts is a bit complex and provides two levels of alarm. The first occurs when 35 new infections per 100,000 inhabitants are exceeded in a district in the last 7 days: in public places a maximum of 50 participants are allowed, in private homes it is not possible to impose numbers but it is "strongly recommended" to limit parties to 25 people. The second level is triggered when the new infections (always per 100 thousand inhabitants in the last 7 days) are 50: in this case participation in public places will be limited to 25 people, for private homes it is advisable not to exceed 10.
Along with the rules come more checks and sanctions. Already today in catering it is mandatory to leave one's personal data on special forms, to allow a rapid search for contacts in case of infection, but many neglect this obligation. In addition to the fines against them, there will be those for customers who issue false details: it starts from a minimum of 50 euros which can reach, in some Luanders such as Schleswig-Holstein, up to 1,000 euros. But even here each region will do it by itself: in Saxony-Anhalt, where there is no registration requirement, there will not even be a sanction, as its governor stressed. The restaurateurs will be allowed to ask the customer for an identity document, if they get the impression that the customer is providing false details.
The Länder are also given the freedom to further tighten the restrictions in the event of a worsening of the situation. For example, it will be possible to issue bans on the consumption of alcohol in bars and restaurants. And the Bavarian president Markus Söder, one of the most affected Länder since the first wave, summarized the new strategy in three slogans: “In case of increased infections, the principle applies more masks, less alcohol and smaller parties”. Meanwhile, due to the growing number of cases, Bayern's home matches in Munich will again take place without an audience (at the moment a minimum of 1,000 spectators is allowed and a maximum limit of 20% of the stadium capacity).
The two-level alarm model closely resembles the traffic light system already used in Berlin that Söder would have liked to introduce throughout the country. But precisely in the capital, spared in the first wave and now one of the hotspots of the new phase, the city Senate has decided to go beyond the measures approved yesterday, introducing the obligation of a mask in all offices and that of a list with data personal data for private parties with more than 10 people.
The numbers provided by the Koch institute on infections remain far below the levels reached by the nations currently most exposed in the second wave, such as Spain, France and Great Britain. In the last week, the peak of 2,500 new infections has been reached several times, data that bring the situation back to the month of April. But it is the constant increase that worries and the awareness that, if it is no longer possible to trace the chains of contagion, we can return to a situation out of control that will require such drastic measures as to paralyze the social and economic life of the country again.
This is why we try to get ahead, accentuating the regional dimension in the new strategy prepared for the second wave. "A national lockdown must be avoided in every way", Merkel said, explaining the measures, "and instead act in a specific way, for specific objectives and at a regional level".
New investments (up to 4 billion euros until 2026) will also enhance the health control system, the digitization of hospitals, staff (up to 5,000 new hires for each Land). In view of autumn and winter, in addition to the advice to get vaccinated for the flu, the system of so-called fever ambulances, mobile medical centers to avoid the collapse of medical centers, will be established. Already today, in front of some Berlin doctors' offices, long lines of citizens insist on the pavements waiting for a swab or a visit.
One of the most immediate concerns is also linked to autumn holidays, the classic weekly school break in October, often an opportunity for short family trips. The advice is to avoid trips abroad as much as possible, especially the areas at risk, and to spend this period in Germany or in the less affected European regions. In this regard, the Chancellor also indicated Italy, where the cases are few, praising the attention of the Italians in following the personal security measures. An impression confirmed not only by the low numbers in what is styto the first European country to be hit by the pandemic, but also by the testimonies of German tourists who visited our country in the summer. In the meantime, the foreign ministry updates the list of areas at risk, a patchy map that includes large regions in Spain and France but also capitals such as Paris, Madrid, Prague, Vienna, Amsterdam.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/come-la-germania-affrontera-la-seconda-ondata-covid/ on Wed, 30 Sep 2020 08:09:51 +0000.