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This is how the major German states are implementing the new lockdown rules

Angela Merkel and the state leaders agreed to a seven-page document on lockdown rules on Monday that will keep the country under tight restrictions until mid-April. But the wordings often leaves it to the states to flesh out the exact rules on their home turf. Some of the major states announced their plans on Tuesday.

Published: 23 March 2021 17:14 CET
This is how the major German states are implementing the new lockdown rules
Hamburg harbour. credit: dpa | Georg Wendt

North Rhine-Westphalia

Armin Laschet, the state leader in Germany’s most populous state, said on Tuesday morning that his state would implement the “emergency brake” from the new coronavirus rules “one-to-one.”

The emergency brake clause stipulates that a state or region should return to the tough lockdown rules of February should it record a 7-day incidence above 100 on three consecutive days.

Due to the fact that NRW has a 7-day incidence above 100, the new CDU chairman said that the ’emergency brake’ would be activated in the state of 18 million inhabitants starting on Monday March 29th.

Saying that he understood people’s disappointment, Laschet stated that “there is no other way to slow down the virus’ spread at this time.”

SEE ALSO: Three-quarters of Germans think new CDU leader Laschet ‘not suitable choice for Chancellor’

But just how strictly NRW is going to enforce the emergency brake seems unclear.

Laschet said on Tuesday that two households of up to five people would be allowed to meet over Easter. In fact, the emergency brake is supposed to reactivate the February lockdown rules which limited contacts to one person outside one’s own household, which is what Hamburg has done (see below).

Laschet also ruled out night-time curfews, saying these were “no solution.”

Berlin

Berlin plans to go above and beyond the timeline set out on Monday. Mayor Michael Müller intends to extend the capital’s lockdown until April 24th, almost a week longer than the extension agreed by the federal and state governments.

Müller said though that the city could implement new rules after the next lockdown summit on April 12th. “So this does not mean that the lockdown has to be in place in this form until the end of April.”

Berlin currently has a 7-day incidence of 94 and is thus still under the barrier of 100 at which the emergency brake would have to be pulled.

Tagesspiegel is reporting that he Senate has no plans to ‘pull the brake’ as long as the 7-day incidence is below 100, and also that Berlin will not impose night-time curfews.

Bavaria

Germany’s economic powerhouse has said that it will start opening back up aspects of public life immediately after Easter in three or four test regions. State leader Markus Söder did not say on Tuesday which regions these would be.

The pilot projects are to take place based on a comprehensive testing regime.

Söder also confirmed that schools will stay open in regions with a 7-day incidence below 100.

SEE ALSO: Curfews, testing for all air travel: the key changes in Germany’s new Covid rules

Even in regions with a higher incidence, final year classes as well as the fourth year of primary school and the 11th grade at grammar schools, technical colleges and vocational colleges, will go back into the classroom based on a shift system.

Hamburg

The Hanseatic city has gone further than the rules set out in Monday’s Covid summit.

After the city “pulled the emergency brake” on Saturday based on a 7-day incidence that’s been hovering above 100 for a several days, contacts have been stripped back to just one person from outside the immediate household.

This contact restriction will also apply over Easter. Children up to 14 years of age are not counted.

Mayor Peter Tschentscher said that his sate was being “a bit stricter” than the rest of the country but said this was necessary due to the infection scenario.

The mayor appealed to the people of Hamburg to refrain from going on holiday, taking day trips or visiting relatives.

Tschentscher also said that medical masks would now be compulsory in vehicles “if people from different households are sitting together.”

Hesse

In the central German state, where gyms have been open again for much of March, the state government is also set to enact the “emergency brake.”

Hesse has had a 7-day incidence over 100 for six days in a row, and the state government said on Tuesday that “no further easing of restrictions will take place before Easter.”

Gyms will likely have to close again and children’s sport will be put on pause.

State leader leader Volker Bouffier will give further details later on Tuesday.

Baden-Württemberg

The southwestern state wants to ensure that nobody works on Thursday April 1st, allowing for people to stay at home for five days straight. But state leader Wilfried Kretschmann said that there were still “legal issues to sort out” on this point.

Kretschmann said he was in favour of night-time curfews, a tactic he has used previously. He also hinted on Tuesday that he might take the power to decide on whether to pull the emergency brake away from local governments – and take control himself.

The town of Tübingen has embarked on a pilot project which has attracted considerable attention. It has been given permission to keep shops, cafes and cinemas open based on an intensive testing regime.

Residents of the town can enter various businesses as long as the show a negative test that has been conducted in the past 24 hours.

READ MORE: Why one German town is lifting its lockdown despite third coronavirus wave

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COVID-19 RULES

End of the pandemic? What the expiry of Sweden’s Covid laws really means

With the expiry of Sweden's two temporary Covid-19 laws, the downgrading of the virus's threat classification, and the end of the last travel restrictions, April, officially at least, marks the end of the pandemic. We explain what it means.

Published: 1 April 2022 13:07 CEST
End of the pandemic? What the expiry of Sweden's Covid laws really means

What are the two laws which expire on April 1st? 

Sweden’s parliament voted last week to let the two temporary laws put in place to battle the Covid-19 pandemic expire on April 1st.

The first law is the so-called Covid-19 law, or “the law on special restrictions to limit the spread of the Covid-19 illness”, which was used during the pandemic to temporarily empower the authorities to limit the number of visitors to shops, gyms, and sports facilities. It also gave the government power to limit the number of people who could gather in public places like parks and beaches. 

The second law was the “law on temporary restrictions at serving places”. This gave the authorities, among other things, the power to limit opening times, and force bars and restaurants to only serve seated customers.  

What impact will their expiry have? 

The immediate impact on life in Sweden will be close to zero, as the restrictions imposed on the back of these two laws were lifted months ago. But it does means that if the government does end up wanting to bring back these infection control measures, it will have to pass new versions of the laws before doing so. 

How is the classification of Covid-19 changing? 

The government decided at the start of February that it would stop classifying Covid-19 both as a “critical threat to society” and “a disease that’s dangerous to the public” on April 1st.

These classifications empowered the government under the infectious diseases law that existed in Sweden before the pandemic to impose health checks on inbound passengers, place people in quarantine, and ban people from entering certain areas, among other measures. 

What impact will this change have? 

Now Covid-19 is no longer classified as “a disease that’s dangerous to the public”, or an allmänfarlig sjukdom, people who suspect they have caught the virus, are no longer expected to visit a doctor or get tested, and they cannot be ordered to get tested by a court on the recommendation of an infectious diseases doctor. People with the virus can also no longer be required to aid with contact tracing or to go into quarantine. 

Now Covid-19 is no longer classified as “a critical threat to society”, or samhällsfarlig, the government can no longer order health checks at border posts, quarantine, or ban people from certain areas. 

The end of Sweden’s last remaining Covid-19 travel restrictions

Sweden’s last remaining travel restriction, the entry ban for non-EU arrivals, expired on March 31st.  This means that from April 1st, Sweden’s travel rules return to how they were before the Covid-19 pandemic began. 

No one will be required to show a vaccination or test certificate to enter the country, and no one will be barred from entering the country because their home country or departure country is not deemed to have a sufficiently good vaccination program or infection control measures. 

Does that mean the pandemic is over? 

Not as such. Infection rates are actually rising across Europe on the back of yet another version of the omicron variant. 

“There is still a pandemic going on and we all need to make sure that we live with it in a balanced way,” the Public Health Agency’s director-general, Karin Tegmark Wisell, told SVT. 

Her colleague Sara Byfors told TT that this included following the “fundamental recommendation to stay home if you are sick, so you don’t spread Covid-19 or any other diseases”. 

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