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Berlin (dpa) - In view of the continued high number of infections and great concern about the coronavirus mutations that have emerged, the discussion about the timely tightening of the lockdown has picked up tremendously.

Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) wants to discuss how to proceed with the corona pandemic with the prime ministers of the federal states next week and not as planned on January 25.

Saxony's Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer also expects consultations in the coming week.

"Completely shut down kindergartens, close schools, really entry bans in nursing homes if there is no negative rapid test - we have to discuss things like that," said the CDU politician on Thursday evening in the ZDF program "maybrit illner".

Green parliamentary leader Katrin Göring-Eckardt called for a special session of the Bundestag in the coming week in the "Spiegel" in view of the pandemic situation.

"As long as the number of infections does not go down, the lockdown measures cannot be ended and further measures will be necessary, especially in the world of work," said the Green politician.

"We should ask ourselves whether a complete lockdown of two to three weeks is ultimately better than an endless hanging game," said Thorsten Frei, deputy chairman of the Union parliamentary group in the Bundestag, the "Spiegel".

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Merkel made the need for advice on Thursday evening in meetings in preparation for the election party convention of the CDU on Friday and Saturday, according to information from the German Press Agency from several participants.

There is currently no scope for openings.

The variant of the coronavirus that has emerged in the UK is spreading much faster than the original form, scientists are very concerned.

Everyone believes that the virus mutation is very aggressive and that its spread must be slowed down.

Act now.

Merkel did not name a date for the next round with the heads of government of the countries, but Monday and Tuesday are under discussion according to further information.

Merkel was quoted as saying that they were in a race against time and couldn't wait until January 25th.

Saxony's head of government expressed a similar expression on ZDF.

The number of infections has not decreased as a result of the current lockdown "as we wanted it to and as we need it".

At this point, Kretschmer also referred to the possibly more contagious virus mutations that could further increase the number of infections.

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In his opinion, it is also important to take a look at local public transport.

«The public transport, not so many people are allowed to ride.

From my point of view, that is the order of the day. "

According to several participants, Merkel rejected a report in the "Bild" newspaper, according to which the Chancellery was thinking about discontinuing local and long-distance public transport at the CDU deliberations on Thursday evening.

The President of the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), Lothar Wieler, once again made it clear that, in his view, the previous measures in the fight against the corona virus are not sufficient.

In the ARD “Tagesthemen” he also appealed to implement the current measures more consistently.

"We need more test sites that can recognize the mutation," demanded Bavaria's Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) in the newspapers of the Funke media group.

"In addition, FFP2 masks and a consistent implementation of the current lockdown help," said Söder, whose government has introduced an FFP2 mask requirement for Bavaria in public transport and retail from Monday.

Söder did not want to predict whether a hard lockdown would be necessary by Easter.

But: "I'll stay on the team too, be careful."

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The SPD health expert Karl Lauterbach spoke on "maybrit illner" of a race to get the current wave under control quickly enough before the new virus mutations spread more widely.

If that doesn't succeed, “we won't get out of lockdown anytime soon”.

This will not succeed without tightening.

Lauterbach explained that the average age in the large intensive care units is currently 60 years.

Among them are many younger people, with obesity showing up as an increasingly strong risk factor for the most severe courses.

The President of the German Interdisciplinary Association for Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine (Divi), Gernot Marx, brought a possible target of less than 1000 Covid 19 intensive care patients into play in the newspapers of the Funke Mediengruppe as a condition for relaxation.

"Spoken in traffic light colors: In 11 of 16 federal states the traffic light is red, there are less than 15 percent free intensive care beds," said Marx.

Any easing is unlikely to come until the situation has eased significantly.

"The number of Covid-19 patients receiving intensive medical care must be well below 1000 patients nationwide."

According to this, almost 5200 Covid-19 patients are currently being treated in intensive care across Germany.

© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210115-99-32889 / 2