(Berlin) Outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkel said she was “worried” about the resurgence of the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany, warning of “a certain recklessness” in an interview published on Saturday.
The current evolution in hospitals and concerning the number of deaths “worries me a lot […] She should worry us all, ”the Chancellor told the Sunday edition of Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
According to her, the time is “again to a certain recklessness”. While defending the lack of vaccination obligation in force in the country, she said she was “very saddened” that “two to three million Germans over 60 years are still not vaccinated”.
“It could make a difference, for these people and the whole of society,” said Angela Merkel, who will step down at the end of this year after 16 years of rule.
PHOTO ALKIS KONSTANTINIDIS, REUTERS
Outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkel
The cases of infections started to rise again in the country with the arrival of autumn: on Saturday, the Robert Koch health watch institute (RKI) recorded 21,543 new cases in 24 hours and 90 deaths.
The incidence of infection climbed to 145.1 per 100,000 population over seven days, from 100.00 a week ago.
And the vaccination campaign is stalling: according to the RKI, 55.5 million Germans are completely immune to the virus, or 66.7% of the population.
Several health professionals have reported in recent days a new influx of COVID-19 patients in hospitals, the vast majority of unvaccinated people.
According to the president of the German hospital company Gerald Gass, hospitalizations of patients with COVID-19 increased by 40% in the space of a week. In intensive care, the increase reaches 15%.
“If the evolution continues, we will soon have 3000 patients in intensive care,” he recently warned in an interview with the regional newspaper group Redaktionsnetzwerks Deutschland, and this will lead to “restrictions on the normal functioning” of the establishments, such as the postponement of scheduled operations.
According to a Forsa poll commissioned by the Ministry of Health published on Thursday, convincing those reluctant to the vaccine is not easy.
In total, 65% of unvaccinated people surveyed said they did not want to receive the vaccine “under any circumstances”, 23% said they were “unwilling”. And 89% of unvaccinated respondents said that the danger of saturation of intensive care in hospitals had no influence on their willingness to be vaccinated.