Germany wary of lifting lockdown, despite economic pain

Politicians and scientists in Germany pushed back against calls for a rapid relaxation of pandemic restrictions as new figures released Thursday showed that businesses have applied for state aid to avoid slashing 10 million jobs because of ecomic downturn.

Like in or countries, lockdown measures designed to curb spre of new coronavirus have paralyzed much of public life in Germany.

Authorities recently allowed stores to reopen and some students to return to school, but officials dampened expectations about an imminent return to rmality. German media reported that federal government is considering reopening playgrounds and allowing church services soon.

“Especially because Germany has so far come through this crisis better than ors it would be reckless to endanger this hard-won joint achievement,” Health Minister Jens Spahn said.

country of 83 million has recorded almost 162,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 6,467 deaths so far, according to figures compiled by Johns Hopkins University. That is about a quarter number of deaths recorded in Britain and France, even though three countries have a similar number of confirmed cases.

In an op-ed for daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Spahn insisted that government wanted to take “small steps, rar than risk a big step back.”

Chancellor Angela Merkel was holding talks with goverrs of Germany’s 16 states Thursday to discuss impact that existing measures have h on slowing spre of virus.

he of Germany’s disease control center said country has recorded between 1,000 and 1,500 new cases a day over past week, down from 2,000 previous week. says he expects actual number of deaths in country from new coronavirus to be higher than those currently reported.

“It was always been clear that this is a marathon,” Lothar Wieler of Robert Koch Institute told reporters. “But we simply don't kw how long it will take for marathon to end.”

Wieler said that Germany is currently only going through first wave of pandemic.

“ majority of scientists believe that re will be a second wave and maybe even a third,” he said.

So far, Germany has mand to prevent its well-funded health system from being overwhelmed with COVID-19 cases.

But, like elsewhere, medical staff in country are feeling strain.

“ burden is certainly great as we have to deal with a highly infectious disease every day, and treatment regime is t clearly defined,” said Dr. Daniel Heidenkummer, who oversees treatment of COVID-19 patients at InnKlinikum Altoetting, near Germany’s border with Austria.

hospital has treated almost 600 patients with severe illness resulting from coronavirus since early March.

Restrictions on visitors mean that staff have to spend more time tending to emotional welfare of patients, a burden that would rmally be borne largely by friends and family, Heidenkummer said.

Amid lockdown, companies have been scrambling to survive as well.

Jobless figures released Thursday show unemployment in Germany rose by 308,000 to over 2.6 million over past month. jobless rate in April stood at 5.8%, up from 5.1% in March.

Employers avoided far bigger layoffs seen in or countries by taking vant of Germany's short-work program, which allow companies in distress to receive state funds if y hold onto employees rar than letting m go.

Labor Minister Hubertus Heil said companies registered about 10.1 million employees for short work — more than a fifth of country's workforce. Restaurants, bars and hotels were particularly hard hit, with 93% of those employed in sector w in short work, he said. Auto suppliers, a mainstay of Europe’s biggest ecomy, also put almost 70% of employees on short work.

But Heil said that some of those registered for program might never need it, citing recent reopening of stores. While he couldn’t guarantee that all employees would be able to return to work after crisis, “we will continue to fight for every job,” he said.