On Sunday, Germany’s health minister, Karl Lauterbach, ruled out a Christmas-day lockdown but warned that a fifth COVID-19 wave could not be halted any longer and endorsed obligatory vaccination as the only way to stop the pandemic from spreading. “There will not be a lockdown in place here before Christmas. However, we will see a fifth wave because we have passed a critical threshold for Omicron infections “Lauterbach made the statement while speaking on German public network ARD. “It is no longer possible to entirely stop this wave.” Lauterbach also stated in a subsequent interview with BILD that he did not anticipate a “hard shutdown” following the holiday season. The Netherlands, a neighboring country, launched a lockdown on Sunday that would last at least until January 14 in order to contain an expected outbreak of the virus. Earlier this month, Germany restricted unvaccinated people from accessing non-essential enterprises in an attempt to contain the rise in cases associated with the spread of the Omicron type. Lauterbach stated that the administration still needed to make it plain to the public what would and would not be permitted over the Christmas season, but he did not elaborate on the specific measures that were under consideration.
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According to a statement issued on Sunday by the government’s scientific advisory body, it is important to further restrict contact between people because research to date has shown that boosters alone will not be sufficient to prevent the spread of the virus from spreading. According to the statement, given how quickly and widely the Omicron variant disseminates – with Omicron cases doubling every 2-4 days in Germany at the moment, which is slower than the UK’s growth rate but faster than the spread of other variants in Germany – significant overcrowding of hospitals was to be expected, the statement added. According to data from the 17th of December, about 70% of the population has received a full vaccination against the virus. According to the Robert Koch Institute for Infectious Diseases, the country reported 29,348 new cases on Sunday, with 180 deaths as a result of them. The number of new cases reported on a daily basis increased dramatically in October and November but has been steadily declining since the beginning of the month.
