An iron curtain has descended on Europe, and once again, it goes right through the middle of Germany. The average national infection rate is currently exploding, but the real story is not the average, but the vast gap between east and west, with another gap between the north and south. The north-west of Germany is like the rest of the western EU, cases growing but not at such an alarming rate. But the south-east is like central and eastern Europe. Hospitals are overflowing. Berlin has ceased all non-emergency operations. Germany’s formidable and numerous intensive care units are now for the first time in the pandemic experiencing bottlenecks, for which they have made no emergency planning.
The politics behind this is potentially quite dangerous. Markus Söder and Winfried Kretschmann, the state premiers of Bavaria and Baden-Wuerttemberg, came out yesterday with a demand for obligatory vaccination. Angela Merkel’s spokesman said immediately that this was an issue that she would happily pass on to Olaf Scholz and his coalition.
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