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In view of the persistently high corona numbers, the partial lockdown is to be extended to January 10.

Chancellor Angela Merkel and the Prime Ministers of the federal states decided on this during their deliberations on Wednesday, as the CDU politician announced afterwards.

"In principle, the condition remains as it is now," said Merkel.

The Chancellor said that on January 4th there should be another consultation on how to proceed.

Merkel said that Germany is still “very far away” from target values ​​in the corona pandemic.

There was a very high number of fatalities.

This shows what responsibility the federal and state governments have.

“We still have the goal of getting an incidence of less than 50 cases per 100,000 inhabitants in seven days,” affirmed Merkel.

Bavaria's Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) said the Corona situation was "by no means" relaxed.

It is right to extend the partial lockdown until January 10th.

Söder also indicated a possible further tightening of the anti-corona measures.

At some point one will have to consider extending the measures in some areas.

One has to consider: better shorter, more consequent than longer, semi-consequent.

Söder: "The safety of the vaccine must be maximally guaranteed"

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"The question is whether we can keep the country in this kind of half-sleep the whole time - or whether we don't have to think again at some point about going deeper and more clearly in some places," he said.

In addition, Söder emphasized that it was important not to rush to approve the vaccines developed.

"The safety of the vaccine must be maximally guaranteed."

Berlin's Governing Mayor Michael Müller (SPD) spoke out in favor of the federal government's rapid determination of the framework conditions for the upcoming mass vaccinations.

Many countries such as Berlin are already well prepared with their vaccination centers.

“But it is important that we stick to this together,” said Müller.

There is a need for regulations on the invitation system for those affected, which is to be standardized nationwide.

Here the federal states needed quick planning security.

“It doesn't work by itself,” added Müller, referring to the lack of clarity as to which population groups should be vaccinated in which order.

The first vaccine approvals in the EU could come at the end of December, said Merkel.

That is why it is important that the preparations are then well advanced.

Great efforts are being made in the federal states to set up planned regional vaccination centers.

In addition, a "fine-tuning" of the stipulations on the sequence of vaccinations by the Standing Vaccination Commission is pending.

On this basis, the Federal Ministry of Health will then issue a regulation.

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The health authorities reported 487 deaths in connection with the coronavirus to the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) within 24 hours, as the RKI announced on Wednesday.

This is the highest daily value since the beginning of the pandemic.

In addition, a comparatively large number of people in Germany are still infected with the virus.

There has been a slight decrease in new infections in the past few days, but the hoped-for effect of the partial lockdown has not yet materialized.

The partial lockdown, which has been in force since November, with closings of restaurants, for example, was extended last week until just before Christmas.

The decision paper stated that the federal and state governments assumed that extensive restrictions would be required by the beginning of January due to the high level of infection, especially in the area of ​​restaurants and hotels.