German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned that Germany is on the verge of losing control of the pandemic and considers the situation with the coronavirus threatening and dramatic.
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Merkel spoke about this in the morning at a closed meeting with the leadership of her party, the Bild edition learned.
According to the publication, Merkel called the situation threatening, saying that “every day matters.”
Against this background, Merkel is postponing a video summit with the prime ministers of the federal states, at which the epidemiological situation is to be discussed, from Friday to Wednesday.
“We will need to discuss what can be done to stop the spread of the virus as soon as possible,” government spokesman Steffen Seibert said Monday afternoon.
“Our focus should be on what the federal and state governments can do together to reverse this trend as quickly as possible,” Seibert added.
The number of new infections that are registered daily has roughly doubled in Germany in a week. The proportion of older people among those infected is increasing again and hospitals are accepting more and more patients with COVID-19, Seibert added.
According to the publication, Merkel told party members on Monday that measures to contain the virus are obviously not enough, the rate of infection is not slowing down and the health authorities can no longer understand the chain of infection.
As a result, Germany may soon find itself in a “difficult situation” when there will not be enough beds in intensive care units, Merkel explained. She noted that the growth of infection needs to be stopped since the situation is “very dynamic” and “dramatic”.
Germany has seen a sharp rise in coronavirus cases recently, which began with the onset of cool weather. The Robert Koch Institute confirmed over 11,000 new cases on Sunday.