Germany facing pre-Christmas lockdown as Covid-19 cases soar

Germans are facing a nightmare before Christmas as a hard lockdown looms from next weekend, cutting short seasonal shopping to contain spiralling Covid-19 cases.

As new daily cases continue to rise – nearing 30,000 in 24 hours and almost 600 dead reported on Friday – the country’s 16 state leaders will hold an emergency meeting on Sunday.

“Between December 20th and January 10th we will have practically three weeks of massive restrictions, which will also certainly lead to incidence rates going down,” said Michael Müller, governing mayor of the city-state of Berlin.

Two weeks after they brushed aside chancellor Angela Merkel’s demand for a tougher lockdown, she begged people on Wednesday to reduce contacts in the Advent season – or realise too late that “this Christmas was the last one with the grandparents”.

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In an ill-disguised swipe at state leaders, who are largely responsible for health policy, she said on Wednesday that nearly 600 deaths a day was “not acceptable”. That has prompted panicked minister presidents to announce post-Christmas restrictions from the Baltic to the Bavarian Alps – or even sooner.

“We need country-wide limits on going out, curfews in infection hot spots, shop closures and longer school holidays everywhere,” said Markus Söder, Bavaria’s state leader, after imposing regional measures.

Germany had a relatively mild first wave of Covid-19, due to early testing and tracing and a strong regional network of specialist clinics spread out among the 16 federal states, reflecting their lead competence on public health.

Federal weaknesses

But this decentralised federal system has shown its weak side in the second wave, as state leaders with vastly differing infection rates in this country of 83 million struggled to agree on a consistent policy.

Many of the country’s epidemiologists say that Germans – faced with constant squabbling among state leaders, constantly shifting guidelines and a mild first wave – are now faced with what they have named the “prevention paradox”.

A reduced fear of the virus combined with restriction fatigue has left state authorities struggling to police effectively the current so-called lockdown lite.

In place since November, it limited closures to cultural and sports venues, but left schools and all retail open – with face masks and capacity restrictions.

This flattened the infection curve slightly but, on Thursday, federal infection experts sounded the alarm, saying the country could soon tip over again into exponential growth.

Germany is the only western European country where numbers continue to rise, while the number of cases now in care homes is twice as high as back in the spring.

Federal interior minister Horst Seehofer said on Friday he had “fury in his belly” that Germany had squandered the advantage it built up in the first half of the year.

“The only chance we have to master the situation again is a lockdown that must happen immediately,” said Mr Seehofer to Der Spiegel magazine.

As well as closing non-essential retail, Sunday’s meeting is likely to tighten once more how many people can gather for Christmas