Coronavirus: German States To Reimpose Lockdown Measures Due To Spike In Cases Days After Lockdown Ease

Federal States in Germany have agreed to reimpose lockdown measures due to spike in coronavirus infections just days after German Chancellor Angela Merkel started to ease the measure.

The 16 Federal States, all with the power to relax restrictions, agreed to reimpose lockdown if new cases hit 50 per 100,000 people over seven days.

The regional government in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany’s most populated state, recorded a spike in coronavirus cases after 150 of 1,200 employees tested positive at a slaughterhouse in Coesfeld.

Due to the infection spike, the regional government has now postponed reopening restaurants, tourist spots, fitness studios and larger shops which was supposed to happen on May 11.

Regardless of this, reopening schools and daycare centres is set to go ahead as planned.

North Rhine-Westphalia’s health minister Karl-Josef Laumann said the slaughterhouse infection rate had pushed the region from 50 per 100,000 people to 61 per 100,000 people.

He closed the slaughterhouse temporarily and said employees at all of the state’s meat processing plants would be tested.

A different slaughterhouse in the northern state Schleswig-Holstein also saw a rise in employees testing positive for the virus taking the district’s infection rate over the 50 per 100,000 people threshold.

In the eastern state of Thuringia, the local government recorded more than 80 infections per 100,000 people over the past week.

This is a setback to Angela Merkel‘s efforts in easing Germany’s lockdown measures. She had said the country had defeated ‘the first phase of the pandemic’ because it had a slowing infection rate and a low mortality rate.

Germany has a total of 170,876 confirmed cases and 7,510 deaths as at May 9th.