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Virologists are cautious about the 15-kilometer rule in corona hotspots in Bavaria, which has been in force since Monday.

"From an infectiological point of view, a 15-kilometer limit is initially of no benefit," says Ulrike Protzer, Director of the Institute for Virology at the Helmholtz Zentrum München and Head of the Institute for Virology at the Technical University of Munich.

“Of course, the images of overcrowded destinations are initially frightening,” says Protzer.

"But if you want to avoid crowds of people, it is perhaps more efficient to introduce targeted access restrictions for individual locations, for example blocking the access roads when the parking lots fill up, than generally restricting the radius of movement." Because this carries the risk of In the metropolitan areas, even more people would have to move in a confined space, and the inner-city parks and green spaces would then be really overcrowded.

"And then you quickly meet people you know and maybe forget the necessary distance rules."

Since Monday, residents of rural districts and independent cities, in which there are more than 200 newly infected people per 100,000 inhabitants within a week, have only been able to make excursions within a radius of 15 kilometers from their place of residence.

The new regulation had caused a controversy in the state parliament, the opposition had criticized the requirement.

SPD parliamentary group leader Horst Arnold, for example, called the 15-kilometer rule disproportionate and unsuitable for further containing the pandemic.

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