Forestall lockdown Steinmeier calls on citizens to restrict contacts
Berlin · "It’s important that we all act together now": German President Steinmeier asks the population to prevent a lockdown by voluntarily restricting contact.
German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier has urged citizens to prevent a lockdown by voluntarily restricting their contacts.
"It is important that we all act together now," Steinmeier wrote in a guest article for Bild am Sonntag. "Let's stick to the rules, let's reduce our personal contacts once again. Let's do this so that schools and daycare centres don't have to close, so that we don't have to again shut down public life completely."
"Get vaccinated"
Steinmeier also renewed his appeal to people to get vaccinated, saying, "We could be so much further along! This is a bitter, but necessary realisation. We have in our hands the means to protect ourselves from a severe, even fatal course of the disease. But still too few have made use of it. That's why I'm asking you again today: get vaccinated, and get your booster protection in time!"
On Saturday, the National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina had proposed to quickly impose several weeks of contact bans, even for vaccinated people, in order to break the strong fourth Corona wave. In addition, 30 million people in Germany would have to receive a booster vaccination by the end of the year. Mandatory vaccination, at least for health care workers, is necessary, he said.
Heil: "There is a moral duty to vaccinate".
Hubertus Heil (SPD), Germany's caretaker labour minister, announced that he intends to implement the planned mandatory vaccination for employees in clinics and homes before Christmas. "The most important thing is that more people get vaccinated. This also applies to those who earn a lot and are in the limelight, for example professional footballers. There is a moral duty to vaccinate," Heil told Bild am Sonntag.
Asked whether he would also support a general duty to vaccinate, Heil replied, "Yes, and I think it's right that as a first step, we make sure before Christmas that people who work in institutions such as clinics, nursing homes, homes for the elderly and homes for the disabled must be vaccinated." The debate about a blanket legal obligation to be vaccinated must be conducted properly, Heil continued. "Because if compulsory vaccination is to come, it must be on a secure legal basis and it must be practical to implement."
Originaltext: dpa
Übersetzung: Jean Lennox
