German Chancellor Angela Merkel is wearing a face mask as she leaves after speaking to the media at the annual summer press conference during the August 28, 2020 coronavirus pandemic in Berlin, Germany.
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Chancellor Angela Merkel will announce that Germany will extend its blockade until March 14, amid concerns about new strains of the coronavirus.
A draft document emerged early Wednesday, outlining plans between Merkel and state officials to maintain the blockade and urge citizens to maintain the rules of social distance, but to gradually lift some restrictions in the coming weeks.
The reopening of schools is a priority for the German leadership, although the country’s federal system means that it is expected that each state can decide how to do so. The reopening of shops and hotels could begin next month in areas where the infection rate is also low. The restrictions were to end on February 14.
There are concerns in Germany about the spread of several contagious variants of the virus, especially the mutation first discovered in the UK last fall. However, Germany’s daily number of new infections has fallen amid a continuing blockade of public life across the country.
The public health agency, the Robert Koch Institute, reported 8,072 new cases of coronavirus and 813 deaths on Wednesday, bringing the total number of infections to date to about 2.3 million and the death toll to 62,969.
Earlier on Wednesday, a German parliamentarian described the situation as “very fragile”.
Slow launch of the EU
The slow launch of coronavirus vaccines in Germany, as well as in the rest of the EU, is a problem for the German government, which is a key pillar in the bloc. The EU has been slower than the UK and the US to order vaccines from major drug manufacturers and has faced a supply shortage.
The longer the vaccination takes, the longer the economic damage from blockages is expected to be. Germany’s economy contracted by 5% in 2020, according to GDP (gross domestic product) data released in January for the whole year.
Ludovic Subran, chief economist at Allianz, told CNBC on Wednesday that the slow launch of vaccination could really affect the EU’s growth prospects in 2021.
“I’m a little nervous and we’re only in February, that we’re missing the boat here, that vaccination is the best investment there is and we should put all our efforts (efforts) there,” he said. “Street Signs Europe” on CNBC
“Our forecasts show that Europe will return to pre-crisis levels (growth) by 2022 and then we saw the chaos of vaccination and we started thinking ‘OK, we’re really endangering the recovery here’ … the problem is Vaccination four times slower than the UK and the US here, “he said, adding:” This is really an important issue, as this will make or break the 2021 GDP recovery for Europe. “
—Nnette Weisbach, CNBC, contributed to this article.