Germany to prolong shutdown as vaccine row intensifies

BERLIN: German Chancellor Angela Merkel and state leaders are set Tuesday to extend a shutdown in Europe's top economy where the coronavirus vaccine rollout faces mounting criticism.

After Germany's daily deaths surpassed the 1,000-mark for the first time on December 30, pressure has escalated to slow the spread of the disease which has claimed more than 34,000 lives.

Merkel and the premiers of Germany's 16 states are due to stage a video conference at 1200 GMT to extend the current partial lockdown beyond the January 10 deadline, probably until the end of the month.

"Given that infection rates are still too high, it will be necessary to extend the restrictions," Health Minister Jens Spahn said.

Michael Kretschmer, premier of Saxony, the state with the highest infection rates in the country, said a continued shutdown was "unavoidable".

The current rules have seen most shops closed along with schools, restaurants, cultural and leisure facilities, and celebrations over Christmas and the New Year holidays were limited to small gatherings.

Officials say the impact of holiday travel and socialising on the virus's spread will not be known until mid-January but that the figures to date are already deeply worrying.

Government spokesman Steffen Seibert said with some 5,700 corona patients in intensive care, "hospitals in many places are working close to capacity".

Spahn noted that given such figures, a return to "face-to-face" learning for children was "highly implausible" and called for national guidelines on when and how schools could reopen.

In a New Year's Eve televised address, Merkel had already warned Germans of a hard winter, stressing "the challenges that the pandemic poses remain immense".

Germany, the EU's most populous country, fared better than most neighbours during the first wave of the pandemic and its death toll is still lower than countries such as Italy, France or Spain.

But epidemiologists say complacency about that relative success and an unwillingness to implement the toughest measures such as widespread curfews likely contributed to an exponential spread of the virus in the autumn.

Since October, the meetings between Merkel and regional leaders to set policy on the coronavirus have been marked by open conflict, with the chancellor pushing for a tougher line against resistance from several states.

Although Merkel's popularity remains high and a large majority of Germans are broadly satisfied with her handling of the pandemic, analysts say those differences also undermined faith in the shutdown.

A poll by YouGov institute showed that nearly two in three Germans now back extending at least the current restrictions, with 24 percent calling for a harsher lockdown.

The country began a vaccination drive on December 26, and more than 264,000 people have received the first of two jabs.

But German media and even the Social Democrats (SPD), junior partners in the government, have slammed what they call a slow rollout, accusing the government of relying too much on joint action with the European Union.

At the start of an election year, SPD leaders have demanded answers from Spahn why "the European Commission ordered so few vaccines" and "Germany did not order the doses unclaimed in the EU".

A poll from Civey institute found 44 percent of Germans were unconvinced by the government inoculation strategy, while around 40 percent were "highly confident" it was the right approach.

Merkel's spokesman insisted the European way was in the German interest, adding that the latest inoculation numbers "give us great hope".