Germany to institute national curfew to curb spread of virus

This is a first in the policy of combating Covid-19 in Germany: one year after the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, a curfew will be established there at the national level. Very controversial, the measure appears in the new version of the law on the protection against infectious diseases that the Bundestag adopted on Wednesday April 21 after a lively parliamentary debate.

Originally, the German government wanted this curfew to begin at 9 p.m. But, faced with the reservations aroused by the project, including among its majority, both among the conservatives (CDU-CSU) and among the Social Democrats (SPD), the bill was amended. Not only will the curfew not begin until 10 p.m., but it will remain possible to go out for walks and to play sports – alone – until midnight.

The measure will apply in all boroughs (Landkreise) where the incidence rate exceeds, for three consecutive days, 100 new cases per 100,000 population. This is the case today for a very large majority of them, while the average incidence rate is around 160 across Germany and the third wave of the Covid epidemic -19 continues to swell across the Rhine.

The adopted law constitutes a turning point

Other provisions are included in the law voted on Wednesday by the Bundestag. Regarding schools, courses will have to switch to distancing where the incidence rate exceeds 165 (and not 200, as was initially planned). With regard to non-essential businesses, the principle of “click and collect” will be imposed from an incidence rate higher than 150. Finally, in the private setting, it will only be possible to invite people to their homes. someone outside the home.

However, the daily life of Germans will not be disrupted by this new law. In most of the Länder, many restrictions are in fact already applied. In recent days, some regions have also started to introduce night curfews in a country where the barrier of 80,000 deaths from Covid-19 has recently been crossed and where the occupancy rate of resuscitation services is close to maximum reached during the second epidemic wave, at the end of 2020.

If the law adopted on April 21 is a turning point, it is in fact mainly because of what it implies in terms of governance, with the systematic triggering of a number of restrictions at the national level, where the Until now, the Länder had control over the concrete implementation of measures, admittedly drawn up in consultation with the federal government, but on the application of which the latter had little means of intervening in the face of regions wishing to get around.

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