Merkel Puts Germany Into Second Coronavirus Lockdown
Merkel: “We are in a very serious situation.”
German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Wednesday imposed a four-week Wuhan coronavirus lockdown across the country, claiming “human lives depend on it.” Germany’s state media described the move as “lockdown-lite” in which schools shall remain open, but restaurants would be closed and public event banned. The measures, set to take effect on Monday, are the toughest since Germany began easing the lockdown in May.
The announcement comes as Germany, along with many European countries, saw a resurgence of the Chinese virus in recent weeks. On Thursday, the country reported more than 16,700 news cases of the pandemic, setting a daily record since the virus first appeared late last year. “We are in a very serious situation,” Merkel told reporters. “We must act, and now, to avoid an acute national health emergency.”
German news agency dpa reported extent of the new lockdown:
Germany’s federal and state governments agreed on Wednesday to a shutdown for the month of November in a bid to get the situation under control before Christmas.
Cultural and recreational facilities will shut as well as restaurants and bars, and outdoor gatherings will be limited to members of no more than two households, with a maximum of 10 people. The sweeping restrictions come into effect on Monday.
Fans will also be banned from top-level football matches in the Bundesliga, amateur sport will not take place, and gyms, pools, cosmetic studios, massage parlours and tattoo studios will have to close.
The announcement of the new restrictions has led to concerns for businesses already struggling after the first round of closures seen in March and April.
France also joined Germany in reintroducing coronavirus restrictions. On Thursday, the French parliament overwhelmingly approved a second lockdown. “France goes into a second nationwide lockdown this year starting midnight Thursday,” the news channel France24 reported.
German Chancellor faces opposition from within her own Christian Democratic party (CDU) for reinstating the restrictions. “The generalized fear of the so-called second wave of coronavirus spread by the political class and the media is unfounded,” Hans Pistner, a senior CDU politician said. Party’s conservative wing demanded the roll back of the new restrictions which impinging the freedom and privacy of the individual.
Merkel on Thursday was combative in her response. “Freedom isn’t being able to do whatever you want,” she told dissenting Germans.
German state broadcaster Deutsche Welle reported growing dissatisfaction with Merkel’s coronavirus policies:
Many Berlin restaurant owners, for example, have said they would probably have to close down their business if faced with a second lockdown. They have already seen losses after the closure in the spring, followed by rules that forced them to adhere to social distancing regulations and then the curfew imposed last month.
Several news outlets also reported that financing the new measures would push the amount of debt Germany was in for 2021 well over €100 billion ($117 billion). Finance Minister Olaf Scholz had planned a sum of €96 billion to help businesses ride out the pandemic next year, but the new aid package could cost €10 billion more.
The opposition pro-business liberal Free Democrats have spoken out against another shutdown of the hospitality sector. “I believe it is unnecessary and unconstitutional,” party leader Christian Lindner wrote on Twitter before Wednesday’s meeting.
For many in Germany, the question of individual freedom is at least as important as a thriving economy. Leaders of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which is the largest opposition party in the German federal parliament, have been among those the most widely critical of further restrictions.
“No measures — including lockdowns — have had a demonstrable influence on the infection rate, but the lockdown fantasies of government politicians are becoming increasingly absurd,” the AfD parliamentary leader Alexander Gauland said in a statement on Tuesday.
Democracy in Germany was being ‘deformed’ by Chancellor Merkel’s actions, head of the center-right Free Democrats (FDP), Christian Lindner, warned.
Germany’s leading opposition party, the right-wing AfD, also opposed the new measures. Germany under Merkel was on its way to ‘dictatorship’ given the powergrab by the government in wake of the pandemic, AfD’s parliamentary chief Alexander Gauland said. German Chancellor was guilty of spreading misinformation and “wartime propaganda,” he cautioned.
“Another lockdown will be a knockdown for a number of companies and employees,” the AfD national spokesman, Jörg Meuthen, said. “Merkel’s first lockdown earlier this year claimed around a million jobs and hundreds of thousands of employees saw their working hours curtailed. Numerous companies are still fighting to survive.”
[Excerpts from German translated by the author]
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Comments
Does anyone else find it odd that no one is talking about the root cause of Coronavirus?
Could it be that China isn’t as responsible as we were originally told?
No. The CCP shut down internal travel as they let people travel from Wuhan to the rest of the world. Please try to keep up.
TrickyRicky:
I am illustrating that the globalists are utilizing this for their gain, and are in the pocket of the CCP.
I’d appreciate it if you would try and refrain from the snark….leave that to the left.
Sorry about the snark. Also the uptick was an accident. At any rate, do the globalists control the CCP, or is it the other way round? Serious question. Not that it will matter to any of us if PDJT loses the election. Then we are all Uyghurs.
Lockdown and hide? The virus is not going away until it runs its course and or we develop a vaccine. Hope Germans take to the streets in defiance.
Correction: The virus is NEVER going away.
Anyone who thinks that a vaccine will eradicate it is either lying or stupid. Name one virus that has been eradicated by a vaccine program.
Hint: If the virus is eradicated you don’t need a vaccine.
Hint two: No, smallpox is not eradicated.
Your correction is taken as read, without the ‘down’ mark. My emphasis is on the cultural political aspect where I know more than I do about the medical.
No, smallpox is not eradicated.
What, do you have a secret stash of it?
Two laboratories have some bottled up, but there may be some in private collections which have yet to be discovered.
Correctomundo…. by the way… who needs small pox when Marburg-Eboli hybrids can push lethality to nearly 100%. That mix was being developed in the USSR. Who knows what Wuhan is working on now.
There are about 40 Corona Viruses floating around, some man-made, some naturally occurring, some dangerous and some harmless but NOT ONE has had an effective vaccine developed! You can take a vaccine off your Wish List. I wonder if BIG PHARMA are making MORE out of treating the effects of the virus than they hope to make by spending millions developing a vaccine which they will be forced to give away free, especially to 3rd World Countries? How would you know?
What the Reichstag fire was to the Hitler and the Nazi party the pandemic is to Merkel and the CDU. Both achieved the same result. The takeover of the German government by a dictator. Oh well, democracy was nice while it lasted. With all that’s going on we won’t see it’s like again for a while, if ever.
“Cultural and recreational facilities will shut as well as restaurants and bars, and outdoor gatherings will be limited to members of no more than two households, with a maximum of 10 people. The sweeping restrictions come into effect on Monday. Fans will also be banned from top-level football matches in the Bundesliga, amateur sport will not take place, and gyms, pools, cosmetic studios, massage parlours and tattoo studios will have to close.”
But nuts-to-butts “protests” against Trump/racism/climate change/Islamophobia/whatever by Antifa/BLM brownshirts will go on as scheduled.
Looks like East Germany has finally conquered decades after it allegedly ceased to exist.
An interesting take about the situation in Oz. The description of life in Melbourne will make your skin crawl.
https://www.zerohedge.com/medical/isnt-human-unseen-perils-covid-faceless-number-melbourne
Several premature babies have died in Australia because they were not allowed to be transported to NICUs.
Travel Bans are being lifted patchily for the states like Qld (election today), NSW (the Premier up to her belt buckle in trouble), Victoria (Chairman Dan has been tapped on the shoulder!) and WA (playing follow the leader). It’s all just BS unless they open up the International Borders with strict testing at both ends of the journey and quarantines. Anything else is just political nonsense!
There’s a lot of talk in Australia about the increase in suicide rates because of the lockdown. Sure there are a few sad cases of people, some of them quite young, choosing to end their pain in this way but I question whether some of these poor people had been suffering from mental dis-orders long before we ever heard of the Wuhan Virus! There were cases of very young children wanting to end it all over the hysterical garbage about Climate Change being pumped out by the UN’s World Expert – ‘Little Greta “Show Me the Money” Thugberg!’ The biggest single cause of suicides attached to the Chinese Virus is the creeping horror of PTSD which is the cause of over 500 suicides by our returned servicemen! What has the media reported on this? …….(crickets)………
Mutti Merkel must think this is even BETTER than Communist East Germany where she grew up.
Coming soon to a state near you. Since it’s fall/winter the impact on people’s mental health will be much worse.
Between this and concerns about election-related violence, I’m sure the grocery stores will be doing good business this weekend. Not to mention the liquor stores. And ATMs.
Oh, and don’t rely on your online purchases showing up when promised so you can avoid the stores. All of the mail/package carriers are saying they’re pretty much at their limits right now and it’s only going to get worse the closer we get to Christmas.
Now delivering groceries is a “first responder” in late 2020.
As for Merkel… Its great to be “The Leader”. Easier due to East German experience.
You can take the girl out of East Germany, but you can’t take the East Germany out of the girl.
Merkel on Thursday was combative in her response. “Freedom isn’t being able to do whatever you want,” she told dissenting Germans.
Freedom is not being forced to do any old damn thing that the government wants.
You can add Britain to the list too. Once again, the dark curtain of fascism descends onto Europe. I can’t see how we get out of this mess without another world war. China has already started and I wouldn’t be surprised if Germany is again the catalyst in Europe.
What exactly is the goal of these economy-destroying policies?
Originally it was to prevent a tsunami of cases from overwhelming our medical facilities.
But the tsunami never happened. Perhaps it never happened because the early isolation policies were successful. (That’s the most optimistic interpretation.) In that case, they can be relaxed; they worked just fine, crisis averted, now knock it off.
Or perhaps it never happened because it was all a false alarm, and it wouldn’t have happened no matter what clumsy restrictions government imposed on all of us.
In any case, since hospitals were not overwhelmed, and there’s no indication whatever that they will be in the near future, there is no excuse whatever (or at least no legitimate public health excuse) for this continuing abuse.
The plan is always the same: to collapse the economy into the lap of socialism.
BREAKING: Merkel commissions plans for a new Wall to be built around every single German, to ensure social distancing.
Expect governors here to lock down again after the election
My idiot rino governor likely lost his re-election because of his condescending attitude towards us posted
The liberaltarian is gonna pull enough votes now to get the lunatic leftist democrat elected
And he’s already promised another lockdown
“plebes”
Not posted
No, Germany isn’t. “Cases” are nothing but positive PCR tests, tests which are likely being done at excessive amplification levels, creating false positives. Positive tests are not instances of symptomatic disease, and deaths are not rising in lockstep with the increase in cases, which it would if this were a real outbreak of disease.