Saxony's Prime Minister Kretschmer appeased: Nobody should worry that a community will be cordoned off because of high corona numbers. At least not for the next fortnight.
In Saxony, reports about the closure of places with high numbers of corona infections have caused confusion. On Wednesday, the Chemnitz "Freie Presse" and the "Bild" newspaper reported that such a plan was controversial in the state government, but that it was being considered.
The state government will decide on the new measure "as soon as possible in the next few days – and thus possibly before Christmas -", according to the "Free Press". On Thursday morning, Saxony's Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer said that, of course, it would have to be considered what else could be done "to stop this terrible pandemic". The statement made by the State Chancellery did not contain a clear denial.
"Locking off communities" sounds "extremely hard and would be extremely hard," the CDU politician continues. At a meeting of the crisis team on Wednesday, no exit-restricting measures were decided. Such a decision "is currently not pending".
This explanation says practically: "Not at the moment, maybe later", says the Saxon left parliamentary group leader Rico Gebhardt in an interview with ntv.de. "In any case, a denial looks different." In the afternoon, Kretschmer followed up with another explanation. "Nobody in Saxony should worry that a place or a community will be cordoned off," said the Prime Minister on the sidelines of the state parliament session in Dresden. He also does not assume that something like this will have to be decided in the near future.
They decided earlier than others to shut down the country again and will now wait for the effectiveness of the measures taken, said Kretschmer. "It takes ten to fourteen days before you see something very specific. No further restrictions are to be expected beforehand."
With a value of more than 400, Saxony has the highest 7-day incidence per 100,000 inhabitants of all federal states. Numerous districts are well over 500. Six of the ten German districts with the highest incidence values are from Saxony.
Left parliamentary group leader Gebhardt accused Kretschmer of holding citizens responsible for the failure of his policies. The Prime Minister said in the state parliament on Wednesday that the reason for the tense situation in Saxony was "that the Saxons have not internalized the measures we are stipulating here as much as one has to do when one is in such a state pandemic situation is ". Gebhardt said that "accusing all citizens of being responsible for the tense Corona situation is adventurous and does not belong to a Prime Minister".
The Saxon state government called in October to come to Saxony for vacation. She also allowed the small border traffic with the Czech Republic when the neighboring country was already a European hotspot. In addition, the Prime Minister had met with "oathers" and thus reinforced their views. "That is one of the reasons why it is not surprising to me that the values are so high in Saxony."
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