The head of Germany’s disease control agency said that Germany has many loopholes in lockdown rules due to the Corona virus, as figures published on Thursday showed the highest number of daily deaths since the start of the epidemic.
The Robert Koch Institute said that 1,244 deaths from COVID-19 had been confirmed in one day as of Thursday, bringing the total number to 43,881. Also 25,164 newly confirmed cases were recorded, bringing the total number of known infections in Germany to nearly 2 million. .
The data indicate that people in Germany travel more than they did during the first phase of the epidemic in the spring, which contributes to the spread of the virus, said Lothar Weiler, head of the institute.
German authorities imposed restrictions on social contacts, closed schools largely, and restricted travel for those in regions with high infection rates, but the rules are not uniformly enforced in the country’s 16 states.
“For me, these actions we’re taking now aren’t completely lockdowns,” Wheeler said. “There are still many exceptions and they are not being implemented accurately.”
Officials are considering tighter restrictions to curb the continuing rise in infections.
The average daily new cases for 7 days over the past two weeks increased from 23.36 per 100,000 people on December 30 to 26.03 per 100,000 people on January 13.
Wheeler pointed to the sharp rise in infections recently seen in Ireland as an example of how quickly a disease could spread again if the rules were relaxed, especially given the new variant that appears to be more contagious to the virus circulating there and in neighboring Britain.
Wheeler said all infections with the variants confirmed so far in Germany have involved people who have traveled outside the country.
“We need to be very careful, especially with regard to the British surge of this virus,” Ralph Brinkhouse, the parliamentary leader of Merkel’s bloc, told NTV. So we do not yet know what additional measures will be necessary in the coming weeks. “
To ease the pressure on working families who have to care for school-age children and discourage them from using emergency care facilities, Parliament passed a bill Thursday that doubles the amount of paid parental leave to 40 days for 2021. Public health insurances will pay up to € 112.88 ($ 137) per day For parents if they stay home to take care of children under 12 who have been unable to go to school due to the pandemic.
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