Key Takeaways:
- Belgium and the Netherlands are still reeling from clashes that emerged during weekend anti-Covid protests.
- “Probably by the end of this winter,” Spahn predicted, “pretty much everyone in Germany will be vaccinated, cured.”
As Europe battles an outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, which has prompted a travel advisory from the United States, Germans have been warned that they will be “vaccinated, cured, or dead” from the deadly virus by the end of winter.
Germany’s health minister, Jens Spahn, called for additional restrictions on Tuesday to stem a “dramatic” increase in coronavirus cases, as the country’s infection rate reached a record high and the US advised against travel there.
To contain Germany’s fourth wave, the Health Minister called for more public spaces to be restricted to those who had been vaccinated or had recently recovered from Covid-19 and also had a negative test.
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Spahn did not rule out lockdowns but said they would be decided on a region-by-region basis. Some regions, such as hard-hit Saxony and Bavaria, are already taking safety precautions, such as canceling Christmas markets.
The seven days incidence rate of the number of people infected per 100,000 in the previous week reached 399.8 on Tuesday, up from 386.5 on Monday, according to data from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases.
The Dutch Prime Minister, Mark, called the three nights of unrest “pure violence” perpetrated by “idiots,” while his Belgian counterpart, Alexander De Croo, called the violence at a 35,000-strong protest in Brussels, “absolutely unacceptable.”
The return of Europe to the pandemic’s epicenter has been blamed on slow vaccine uptake in some countries, the highly contagious Delta variant, and colder weather moving people indoors once more.
The increase in cases in Germany and neighboring Denmark prompted the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to issue a travel warning to the two countries on Monday, raising its level of recommendation to “Level Four: Very High.”
Due to the high number of cases in Germany and Denmark, the State Department advised Americans not to travel there. Outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkel has warned that Germany’s current Covid curbs, such as barring unvaccinated people from specific public spaces, “are insufficient.”
Source: Live Mint News
