Thu 01 April 2021:

Germany is in the midst of a third wave of the pandemic, with case numbers increasing rapidly.

Germany has reported a total of 24,300 new COVID cases within 24 hours, according to the country’s Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases. This is around 1,600 more than the same time last week. In addition, the seven-day incidence has increased to 134.2, up from 132.3 on Wednesday. The seven-day incidence measures the number of cases per 100,000 residents within this time period.

In light of this, doctors are calling for an urgent tightening of lockdown rules to prevent hospitals from becoming overwhelmed for the third time.

Berlin is imposing a curfew from 09:00 p.m. to 05:00 a.m. starting from Friday, which envisions a ban on outdoors gatherings of more than two people in this time frame, due to COVID-19, Mayor Michael Muller said on Thursday.

“I know that for many this [curfew] will become another significant restriction, will again become a serious obstacle. But it must be said clearly: infections are transmitted through direct contact,” the mayor said when commenting on the decision of city authorities.

Suspends use of AstraZeneca vaccine

Berlin’s top health official, Dilek Kalayci, said on Tuesday that the decision was taken as a precaution before a meeting of representatives from all of Germany’s 16 states after the country’s medical regulator reported 31 cases of rare blood clots in people who had recently received the vaccine. Of them, nine people died.

Earlier on Tuesday, two state-owned hospitals in Berlin announced that they had stopped giving AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine to female staff members below 55 years old.

The heads of five university hospitals in western Germany called for a temporary halt to the vaccine for all younger women, citing the potential risk of blood clots.

Authorities in Munich also suspended the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine for people aged below 60 on Tuesday, Germany’s DPA news agency reported.

Germans lose faith in vaccine strategy

Many have grown frustrated with Germany’s sluggish vaccine rollout, with just 8.69% of the population having received a first jab by Saturday. The latest issue of Spiegel magazine even laments “the new German incompetence” in regards to the slow pace. “Why are other countries faster?” the magazine asks.

The majority of Germans no longer trust the government’s vaccination strategy, nor the promise of nationwide vaccinations by the end of the summer, mass-circulation Bild newspaper reported on Thursday.

The revelation came from a survey carried out by the INSA polling organization for Bild.

Only a quarter of respondents said that they still trusted the German government’s vaccination strategy.

Even fewer — 21% of respondents — said they believed the often-repeated assurance from the government that all adults in Germany will have been offered the chance to be fully vaccinated by September 21.

Germany has fallen behind several countries such as the UK, US and Israel in terms of its vaccine rollout, with the government saying that not enough doses were available.

With the situation in Germany looking bleak, the foreign minister Heiko Maas warned sun-starved Germans last week against unnecessary travel abroad. Travel companies experienced a surge of interest for bookings to Mallorca after the Spanish island was taken off Berlin’s high-risk list. “It’s not an invitation to go there,” Maas said.

For many in Germany it has been a long and frustrating winter. Sadly, it now looks as though they can expect a difficult spring, too.