By Sabine Siebold
BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany will not be able to remove all coronavirus closures at the beginning of February, Health Minister Jens Spahn emphasized the need to further reduce contacts to remove a more virulent variant of the virus. again.
The German cabinet on Wednesday approved stricter controls on people entering the country after a national exclusion was tightened last week and extended until the end of January.
“One thing is already clear: on February 1, it will not be possible to weaken all restrictions,” Spahn told Deutschlandfunk radio on Wednesday, adding that it would take another two or three months before the effects of a vaccination campaign start.
The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for Infectious Diseases reported 19,600 new COVID infections on Wednesday. The death toll rose by 1,060 to 42,637.
The new, stricter rules require people coming from countries with high property taxes or where the more virulent variant is in circulation to take a coronavirus test.
Chancellor Angela Merkel said at a legislative meeting on Tuesday that the next eight to ten weeks would be very difficult if the more contagious variant first identified in Britain spread to Germany, according to a participant in the meeting.
Finance Minister Olaf Scholz has renewed the government’s promise to continue the supporting companies affected by the pandemic. “We will keep it as long as necessary,” he told broadcaster ZDF.
(Reporting by Sabine Siebold and Hans-Edzard Busemann; Edited by Riham Alkousaa, Madeline Chambers and John Stonestreet)