Germany is preparing to follow the example of Austria by imposing new lockdown measures that will exclusively apply to the unvaccinated.
As we highlighted yesterday, Austrian authorities are enforcing the new measures by having police patrol supermarkets and highways, stopping people and checking their vaccination status.
Similar scenes could now be about to unfold in neighboring Germany.
The Guardian reports that the COVID situation in the country is worse now than it was before the vaccine was introduced.
“On Tuesday the country’s disease control agency, the Robert Koch Institute, recorded a seven-day incidence rate of 312 cases per 100,000 people, with several areas at more than 1,000. A year ago, before the vaccine was introduced, the rate stood at 139,” reports the newspaper.
While “not as stringent” as the measures imposed on unjabbed Austrians, several states are now moving to exclude the unvaccinated from numerous venues.
The state of Saxony, where 85% of ICU beds are occupied by Covid patients, became the latest to introduce so-called 2G rules in all non-essential shops and facilities, meaning only people who can prove they have been vaccinated or have recovered from Covid will be allowed entry. Saxony’s social minister, Petra Köpping, said that in addition tests would be required if the incidence continued to rise to the extent that hospitals were unable to cope. 2G is a reference to the German words for vaccinated and recovered (geimpft and genesen).
North Rhine Westphalia is due to follow suit, with unvaccinated people to be excluded from entry to all non-essential facilities and events including football matches and Christmas markets. People wanting to attend carnival events as the season kicks off will be required to take a test in addition to being vaccinated or having recovered.
Berlin is also on track to introduced similar “2G-plus” rules, its mayor, Michael Müller, said on Tuesday. The city hopes to reopen vaccine centres, which were closed across the country at the end of the summer when they were deemed no longer necessary, but authorities have said this would happen in January or February at the earliest.
New measures that solely impact the unvaccinated will be imposed despite a choir concert earlier this month in Germany which only the fully vaccinated were allowed to attend ending in a substantial COVID outbreak that infected at least 24 people.
Meanwhile, an opinion poll in the UK found that a majority of Brits also want to impose a lockdown on the unvaccinated.
58% of Brits would support an Austria style lockdown of the unvaccinated, rising to 63% among Conservatives & 72% for pensioners pic.twitter.com/kVRaafRsHh
— Matt Goodwin (@GoodwinMJ) November 16, 2021
No comments:
Post a Comment