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OKTOBERFEST

Munich’s Oktoberfest cancelled again over Covid

Germany's iconic Oktoberfest beer festival will be cancelled this year for the second year running due to the pandemic, Bavarian state premier Markus Söder said Monday.

Published: 3 May 2021 16:13 CEST
Munich's Oktoberfest cancelled again over Covid
A beer bottle lies on the empty Oktoberfest fairgrounds. Photo: DPA

Holding big public events in Bavaria, including the annual Oktoberfest in the regional capital Munich, will not be feasible this year, Söder said after a meeting with city mayor Dieter Reiter.

“In the classic beer tents at the big festivals, social distancing, masks and other measures are practically impossible to implement,” Söder said.

“The situation is too precarious,” he added. “Imagine there was a new wave and it then became a superspreader event. The brand would be damaged forever and we don’t want that.”

Reiter said the cancellation was “a great pity” for the millions of fans of the festival, with “existential consequences” for people’s livelihoods.

READ ALSO: Oktoberfest in numbers: A look at Germany’s multi-billion euro business

The event, which draws around six million visitors annually from late September to October, was cancelled in 2020 for the first time since World War II.

But the Oktoberfest has previously fallen victim to epidemics — cholera kept the beer tents empty in 1854 and 1873.

With Germany’s vaccination effort picking up pace and new infection numbers beginning to slow, the government was Monday weighing new freedoms for those who have been vaccinated.

Some states have already lifted contact restrictions for vaccinated people, with the government planning national rules by the end of the week.

But Finance Minister Olaf Scholz told the Funke media group on Monday there was “still not much to be said” for a large event like the Oktoberfest.

“We should hold off on large crowds in a confined space for the time being,” he said.

READ ALSO: Oktoberfest ‘very unlikely’ to take place in 2021, says Munich’s mayor

Söder and Reiter ultimately decided to cancel it after consulting with other leaders of cities with large festivals.

“It’s a decision I have to make now. It makes no sense to wait,” Reiter said.

An alternative Oktoberfest celebration is set to take place in Dubai this year, starting in October and running for six months rather than the typical three weeks in the Bavarian capital.

Yet Munich’s city government wrote on their website that the sprawling event won’t replace the original two century old festival, as was widely reported.

READ ALSO: Is Germany’s Oktoberfest heading to Dubai this year?

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COVID-19

Is the pandemic over in Germany?

As much of Germany lifts - or prepares to lift - the last remaining Covid-19 measures, intensive care units say Covid-19 admissions are no longer straining the system.

Published: 24 January 2023 09:00 CET
Is the pandemic over in Germany?

Despite a difficult winter of respiratory illnesses, intensive care units in Germany say Covid-19 admissions have almost halved. The number of cases having to be treated in the ICU has gone down to 800 from 1,500 at the beginning of this month.

“Corona is no longer a problem in intensive care units,” Gernot Marx, Vice President of the German Interdisciplinary Association for Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine, told the German Editorial Network. “A the moment, we don’t have to think every day about how to still ensure the care of patients, but how to actually run a service that can help.”

Marx said the drop has allowed them to catch up on many postponed surgeries.

The number of sick employees in hospitals is also falling, helping to relieve the pressure on personnel.

The easing pressure on hospitals correlates with the assessment of prominent virologist and head of the Virology department at Berlin’s Charite – Christian Drosten – who said in December that the pandemic was close to ending, with the winter wave being an endemic one.

German federal and state governments are now in the midst of lifting the last of the country’s pandemic-related restrictions. Free Covid-19 antigen tests for most people, with exceptions for medical personnel, recently ended.

READ ALSO: Free Covid-19 tests end in Germany

Six federal states – Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg, Hessen, Thuringia, Lower Saxony, and Schleswig-Holstein – have ended mandatory isolation periods for people who test positive for Covid-19.

Bavaria, Saxony-Anhalt, and Schleswig-Holstein have ended the requirement to wear FFP2 masks on public transport, while Berlin, Brandenburg, Saxony, Thuringia, and Mecklenburg-West Pomerania will follow suit on February 2nd.

At that time, the federal government will also drop its requirement for masks to be worn on long-distance trains. Labour Minister Hubertus Heil says that’s when he also intends to exempt workplaces – apart from medical locations – from a mask requirement.

READ ALSO: Germany to drop mask mandate in trains and buses from February 2nd

Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg will also end the requirement for patients to wear a mask in doctor’s offices. That’s a requirement that, so far, will stay in place everywhere else. Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach has also said that he thinks this requirement should remain. 

But some public health insurers and general practitioners are calling for a nationwide end to the obligation for wearing masks in doctor’s offices.

“The pandemic situation is over,” National Association of Statutory Health Physicians (KBV) Chair Andreas Gassen told the RND network. “High-risk patients aren’t treated in all practices. It should generally be left up to medical colleagues to decide whether they want to require masks in their practices.”

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