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Chancellor Angela Merkel has expressed understanding for the concerns of the citizens.

"Many people ask themselves, was it all in vain, is it going to continue like this now?", She said in her government statement on Thursday in Berlin.

"I can give you the answer: No, the situation is very different from last year."

With the appearance of the British mutation, "we are basically living in a new pandemic," she said.

With the old virus variant, the incidence value would be well below 50.

The elderly are now vaccinated, but the intensive care units still have to be checked.

"If the question of how we proceed now, the only really positive response from the intensive care physicians was the Easter lockdown, then you see how great the concern is there," she said.

“The 50, 60 and 70 year olds will be in the hospitals,” she said.

And these are people with many years of life expectancy.

According to experts, ten percent of them would suffer long-term corona consequences.

"That means it is worth fighting for everyone so that they do not get the infection," said Merkel.

“And that is our common task.

With as much freedom as possible for everyone, with as much normality as possible for everyone.

But also with as much consideration as possible to ensure that thousands of people do not have to die. "

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Merkel defended the last resolutions.

An opening concept had been decided by the federal and state governments, which allows a high degree of regionalization.

"It would be wrong to use a yardstick for everyone," said Merkel.

The key to fighting a pandemic is many tests.

Test centers have been set up across the board.

"Testing is the bridge until we see the vaccine effect," she said.

The federal states are responsible for the tests in schools and daycare centers, the federal government cannot do that from Berlin.

"As long as the infection numbers are still low, just over 100, you can still keep them under control with testing, otherwise not anymore."

"The pandemic is also about the pace"

“The number of cases is increasing rapidly across Europe.

I encourage everyone to take a look.

It's not a special German phenomenon, ”she said.

More than half a million people would have lost their lives in the European Union.

She defended the European way of fighting pandemic against criticism.

She also explicitly mentioned the procurement of vaccines.

"It was right to rely on the joint procurement of vaccines by the European Union."

When you see that big discussions break out, even with small differences in distribution, she doesn't want to imagine what would happen if individual EU countries had vaccines and others didn't.

However, she admitted flaws in the organization.

"We have to ruthlessly analyze where we need to improve," she said.

The EU must not freeze in the crisis.

Germany also recognized weaknesses in the organization and recognized them.

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“The pandemic is also about the speed.” Merkel spoke out in favor of producing more vaccine on European soil.

"The problem isn't getting the vaccine, it's production," she said.

It ended with an appeal: “You cannot achieve anything if you see everything in a negative way.” Therefore, it is now a matter of looking positively ahead.

The EU heads of state and government want to hold a video conference on Thursday to discuss ways to accelerate the vaccination campaign against the coronavrus.