With coronavirus infections in Germany hitting a new daily high, more federal states announcing tighter restrictions, and an emergency coronavirus summit scheduled for Sunday, all of the signs are pointing towards Germany heading into a “hard lockdown” - perhaps even before Christmas. 

Calls grow for hard lockdown in Germany before Christmas

13 days before Christmas Eve, and coronavirus numbers in Germany have reached their highest level since the beginning of the pandemic: health authorities reported 29.875 new infections in the 24 hours to Friday morning, according to the Robert Koch Institute. That’s over 6.000 more than the day before, when the previous record of 23.679 daily cases was set. The RKI also reported 598 deaths - the second-highest number in a single day. 

With the coronavirus situation rapidly deteriorating, calls are growing for Germany to take more drastic action. Federal Minister of Economics Peter Altmaier said, “The exponential growth is starting again. And that means: we must act now.” This was echoed by Federal Minister of the Interior, Horst Seehofer, who indicated that the country couldn’t wait until after Christmas: “The only chance to regain control of the situation is lockdown, but this must happen immediately.” 

State leaders seem to be in agreement

The mayor of Berlin, Michael Müller, who is also chairman of the Conference of State Premiers, said on Thursday evening that it was becoming apparent from talks with other state leaders, “that there will be significant cuts from [December] 20,” and that retail will be “significantly” shut down. The SPD politician has spoken in favour of introducing these strict measures in the capital. 

December 20 has been proposed as the possible start date for a new hard lockdown on the grounds that school holidays will have started nationwide by then, meaning that less people will be working and public transport will be quieter, making it an ideal time to try to get infection numbers down. 

Müller indicated that he was confident that other state leaders would agree on the idea of public life being reduced as much over the Christmas and New Year holidays. Even those with currently low infection rates - such as Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Schleswig-Holstein - are saying that this is a nationwide crisis in which they must show solidarity. Apparently the urgent appeal from Chancellor Angela Merkel helped to convince them of this. 

Emergency coronavirus summit scheduled for Sunday

New decisions will be taken on Sunday, when an emergency meeting between state leaders has been scheduled, according to the state premier of Baden-Württemberg, Winfried Kretschmann. He has already announced that his state will go into lockdown after Christmas until at least January 10. The state cabinet is also discussing curfews and other restrictions to apply from next week. Kretschmann said he would advocate this approach at the State Premiers’ conference. 

In Saxony, currently the state with the highest number of infections nationwide, schools, daycare centres, after-school care childcare and many shops are to close from next Monday. There are also plans for nightly curfews between 10 pm and 6 am. Thuringia has also opted to close non-essential shops from December 18.