germany is extending its national
coronavirus lockdown by
three weeks in an effort to reduce
stubbornly high infection and death
rates
chancellor angela mackel and regional
leaders also agreed to tighten some
restrictions including curbs on social
contacts
and limits on people's movements in the
worst affected regions
germany's latest official figures show
over twenty one thousand new infections
and a thousand
deaths underscoring the situation's
urgency
germans have been feeling the effect of
tougher corona restrictions since last
year
but the lockdown is about to get tighter
still
we're going to extend the measures which
we agreed in december until the 31st of
january
and in some areas we will have to
introduce even
tougher measures
infection numbers have not dropped as
sharply as hoped
and there is a new fear of the faster
spreading variant of the virus
which could put massive strain on the
health care system
if it takes hold in germany
there is really major concern about the
virus mutation
if it's true that mutated viruses tend
to displace the existing strains and are
more aggressive
we could be facing difficult times ahead
what's happened in great britain shows
we must not underestimate this
and so the chancellor and state premiers
have agreed an extended lockdown
private meetings will be limited to the
members of a household
and only one other person where
infections are high people will be told
to stay within 15 kilometers of their
home
schools and many shops will remain
closed
and people arriving from outside germany
will need a corona test and have to
spend at least
five days in quarantine restricting
movement in infection hot spots
could prevent a repeat of scenes like
these at the weekend
when hundreds of people ignored police
warnings
and headed for ski slopes but so far
it's not clear how all the new rules
will be enforced
hopes for progress in rolling back the
pandemic now rest on vaccination
new vaccines are set to be approved but
it's expected to be many months before
enough people are immunized
for now germans face a longer lockdown
and no clarity about when it might be
lifted
well for more now i'm joined by janusz
dahmen he's a doctor and also a member
of the
german parliament for the green party dr
diamond do you support
the new coronavirus restrictions
announced by the german government today
or yesterday rather
good morning to my opinion the
resolutions are
definitely necessary but also they are
not sufficient i'm very concerned as a
doctor
that we don't have a long lasting crisis
mode
already and when i look on
the resolutions from yesterday there are
three devastating gaps
in political action which i think
are really definitely necessary
firsthand
we urgently need rapid testing as a
self-test for
a working public health screening second
we need
to get faster with vaccination and third
we really need a working strategy with
contact tracing
which still is a lack of
yeah a sufficient strategy over here in
germany
let's talk then just a moment about the
vaccination strategy because
uh many are criticized the government's
policies as being uh
too slow the rollout of the vaccine what
do you think could have been
done better there
well if we look at the numbers germany
has only vaccinated about 24
percent of all available vaccination
units at the moment and
and this is um not enough uh we really
need to scale up these numbers and the
most important part
is to vaccinate the more older people
and if we think about our own
grandparents we know
they are yeah they have restriction in
movement they have difficulties to get
an appointment
and it would be um yeah much more
sufficient to bring
vaccination to the older people by um
yeah using general practitioners as part
of
vaccination teams for example and then
bringing those old people to the
vaccination centers which
doesn't work unfortunately at the moment
in terms of testing what do you make of
the government's
strategy you say home testing would be a
good idea
but in a case where you have 20 000
new infections on a daily basis is it
even
possible does testing help in that
situation
of course because testing is our only
chance to interrupt
infection chains and at the moment we
only test
basically people with strong symptoms
but we don't test those people
who did have only mild symptoms or even
our just like contact person to a
symptomatic
covet 19 patient so basically we need to
scale this part and with new rapid
antigen tests
there would be a possibility for
everyone to do such
tests on their own but this is not
allowed to german law at the moment and
this
really needs to be changed to have a
sufficient public health screening
you say that german government should
impose even tougher restrictions what
sort of restrictions are you talking
about
um i certainly don't understand why we
on the one hand side sent people from
school
home and they are not allowed
to enter their schools but on the other
hand
i see on daily basis like crowded big
offices where
people are forced to work even without
yeah sufficient occupational
occupational
safety measures to work there instead of
a standard of yeah home office
work which should be not just like
a possibility but the standard of work
over here in germany
mr diamond uh dr dominant thank you very
much for talking with us that was janusz
dahmen from
germany's green party and he's a member
of the german parliament the bundestag
thank you so much joining us now for
more is
marcus ogareck he's director of the
institute for public law at the
university of cologne
thanks for joining us this morning first
of all professor what do you make
of the government's move to restrict
freedom of movement to within 15
kilometers of a person's home does that
not
raise legal questions about fundamental
rights
yeah good morning and thanks for having
me um of course it does yeah
inhabitants of hot spots are not
permitted to travel more than
15 kilometers from their place of
residence unless
they have a valid reason such as going
to work
to the doctor or providing essential
care day trips are explicitly
not considered a valid reason and there
are currently about
70 districts nationwide where
this value has been exceeded according
to the robert koch institute so
i expect a flood of lawsuits and in
germany
every citizen can take legal action
against governmental
decrees in two ways first she or he can
appeal to special administration of
course and in addition
he can file a constitutional complaint
and both are very
effective ways in comparison to many
other nations
okay so you expect that to be challenged
uh the restriction on
freedom of movement but there's another
newly announced restriction it allows
households to meet only
one further person in private what about
that how can that possibly be enforced
yeah actually i don't think it cannot be
enforced nobody really can
control these regulations so that is why
we need great acceptance
in the population otherwise all these
measures will be
in vain they will not work and i expect
the police only to come if for example
neighbors actively inform the
authorities
and but it is up to up to now it is
still
unclear whether these new tighter
contact restrictions will be binding in
private residences that is something
we do not know right now well germany of
course
is a parliamentary democracy but
these uh measures are being imposed
without
parliamentary debate what do you make of
that
yeah we are amidst the national health
crisis so i
completely understand that the
administration
wants to move forward and wants to move
quick decisions that can be
adapted to the current situation but we
should
should not forget that parliament is the
heart of our democracy
by questioning and challenging the
government
parliament can help to refine and to to
improve
policies and their implementation the
parliamentary process itself
lends legitimacy to the government's
actions
improving that they have been thoroughly
considered
and debated that is why i want to
explicitly emphasize that we need a
stronger involvement
of the german parliament and finally
the question of immunization the
vaccines are now being delivered the
rollout is kind of slow do you see any
legal
implications involved there any legal
problems associated with that
of course because someone will have to
decide who will
get the vaccine first and who will get
the vaccine at a later time a moment in
time
so this is also another question
where i think we need parliament
parliament involvement because
parliaments can use the lived experience
of their constituents so
so it's it's extremely important that
the parliament
has has the last word and makes the
final decision
and and we should be very reluctant to
give too much power to the
administration
in these with regard to these questions
professor
thank you very much for talking with us
today that was uh marcus alvarez
director of the institute of public law
at the university of cologne
thank you let's take a look at some of
the other developments
in the pandemic china has denied entry
to a team from the world health
organization
trying to investigate the origins of the
virus in wuhan
meanwhile chinese authorities have
stepped up coveted restrictions around
the capital beijing following an
increase in coronavirus cases in hebei
province
south korea is rolling out mass testing
for 70 000 prisoners and staff
after a recent prison outbreak in seoul
and as medical facilities in the u.s
city of los angeles struggle to cope
with a surge of cases
ambulance workers have been told they
should not transport patients to
hospitals if their chances of survival
are very low
you