Merkel wants German lockdown to continue until March

German Chancellor Angela Merkel wants to keep restrictions to curb the spread of the coronavirus in place until the end of February, participants in a meeting of her own conservative parliamentary group told Reuters on Tuesday.

Merkel and leaders of Germany’s 16 states are due to hold talks on Wednesday to discuss whether steps can be taken to ease lockdown measures which have been in place since November and tightened in mid-December.

“We have to wait until March 1,” participants in the meeting cited Merkel as saying. “My goal would be: not to have to correct steps to open up again with further closing steps.”

Primary schools, nurseries, hairdressers and retail would take priority in any easing and the aim was to avoid another lockdown, Merkel said.

While the number of new daily infections has been falling, concerns are growing about the impact of more infectious strains of the virus on case numbers.

Merkel told participants in the meeting that the share of the mutation of the virus first detected in Britain is doubling every ten days and could soon become the dominant strain in Germany.

She also pleaded for keeping an incidence rate of 50 cases per 100,000 as the main focus for lifting measures, participants said.

Germany reported 3,379 new coronavirus cases on Tuesday and a further 481 deaths. The nationwide 7-day incidence rate was 72.8.