Merkel : COVID Spike ‘Worse Than Anything We’ve Seen’

The latest surge in Covid-19 infections is worse than anything Germany has experienced so far and called for tighter restrictions to help check the spread, Chancellor Angela Merkel said.
According to a person familiar with her remarks, Merkel told officials from her Christian Democratic party on Monday that the situation is “highly dramatic” and warned that some hospitals would soon be overwhelmed unless the fourth wave of the pandemic is broken.
Germany’s contagion rate has set new highs every day for about two weeks. In the eastern state of Saxony the seven-day incidence rate has surged to almost 1,000 per 100,000 people -- close to three times higher than the national average. Hospitals are quickly filling up, and vaccination rates remain stubbornly below 70%, trailing countries like France, Spain and Italy, as seen on Bloomberg reports.
The German chancellor mentioned that a lot of citizens don’t seem to understand the severity of the outbreak, and that while more people should get vaccinated, it wouldn’t be enough on its own. She also called on Germany’s 16 states, which largely set their own policies on coronavirus curbs, to introduce more restrictions already this week.
Fifth level deaths and the rapid spread is creating concerns of higher fatalities. Health Minister Jens Spahn said on Monday that people who aren’t vaccinated against Covid are almost certain to catch it in coming months and some of those will die.
“Just about everyone in Germany will probably be either vaccinated, recovered or dead” by the end of this winter, Spahn said at a news conference in Berlin.

©Photo: Elements of this image furnished by NASA