Germany is Set To Pose A Stricter Lockdown With A Sudden Surge In COVID-19 Deaths

There has been a huge surge in the number of deaths from the COVID-19 on Thursday. The government has announced a stricter lockdown measure compared to the last year’s lockdowns.

As per the reports of the biggest newspaper in the country Bild, Chancellor Angela Merkel proposed a ‘mega lockdown’ all over the country, shutting down almost everything to prevent the fast spread of the new strain of the virus that was first observed in Britain.

In the lockdown, she proposed to close all the public transports, both local and long-distance, according to Bild. As per the reports by the Reuters sources, the state officials were against these strict measures.

Though Germany’s total death rate is a lot less than the United States, it’s daily death rate since mid-December has left the United States behind many times.

Germany has an average of 15 deaths per every 1 million people daily, while the United States has 13 deaths per million.

25,164 new coronavirus cases have been reported by the Robert Koch Institute. The institute has also reported 1,244 deaths recently. Germany’s death toll has reached 43,881 since the pandemic grasped the country.

The ruling parties in the eastern state of Thuringia decided that the regional election that was supposed to happen on April 25th will be held off till September 26th. It is also the day of the federal election this year.

The country has been doing better than the rest of Europe since the pandemic started due to a tight lockdown. But in recent months, the country has been facing a high surge in infection and deaths. The RKI blamed the citizens for not taking the situation seriously.

The head of RKI, Lothar Wieler explained on Thursday that the social di9stancing measures and restrictions were not put in effect recently like in the beginning. He said that work from home should be practiced wherever possible. In his opinion, the new lockdown should have stricter measures.

Before December, there has been a partial lockdown in effect in Germany. Under this lockdown in November, schools and shops were open. The lockdown became stricter in mid-December. All the non-essential shops were shut down and the school did not open since the Christmas holidays.

Wieler revealed that 10 German states faced a huge shortage of beds as 85% of the intensive care beds were given to COVID-19 patients.

The premier of the state of Baden-Wuerttemberg, Winfried Kretschmann said that the regional leaders will be discussing the extension of the lockdown till February in a meeting on January 25th.

Markel will be disusing the vaccine production with the ministers on Thursday.

According to RKI’s report, only 1% of the entire German population has been vaccinated so far.

Germany has reported 16 cases of new fast-spreading virus strain, which was detected first in England, Weiler said. He also revealed that four people have a new strain from South Africa.