The federal and state governments agree: Lockdown will start on Wednesday at the latest

Saturday 12th December 2020

The federal and state governments agree
Lockdown starts on Wednesday at the latest

The federal-state summit takes place on Sunday. But a preliminary decision should already have been made: The hard lockdown should start on Wednesday at the latest. According to ntv information, there should be an exception for Christmas. There are only differences on one point.

The federal and state governments have largely agreed on a lockdown to contain the corona pandemic. This should apply from December 16 (next Wednesday) at the latest. The heads of the state chancelleries have agreed on this with the chancellery, as ntv learned from the state chancellery of a federal state.

There should be a uniform start of the lockdown, it said. The lockdown should initially apply until January 10th. An extension will be discussed on January 4th. A final decision should be made on Sunday morning at a switching conference between Chancellor Angela Merkel and the Prime Minister.

Retail should remain closed during the lockdown. Exceptions are provided for, among other things, grocery stores. In addition, private meetings should continue to be limited to two households and a maximum of five people – not including children under 14 years of age. An upper limit of five people should also apply at Christmas, but the number of households should be allowed to be higher. The regulation should only apply to direct relatives, it said.

The most controversial still open point is the topic of schools and daycare centers. Basically, it is agreed that there should be no face-to-face classes until January 10th. There are differences between the daycare centers. The Chancellery wants to close these too, and the states plead for keeping them open.

According to ntv information, the heads of government from the federal and state levels do not want to speak to each other via video this time, unlike at previous conferences. Instead, the Prime Ministers and the Chancellor should be called on their phones. Theoretically, they would then not have to be in the state chancellery or in the chancellery. This is supposed to be an attempt to keep the conversations more discreet. In previous Corona adverts, information was made public both in advance and during the meetings.