Merkel Urges Tougher Measures to Fight 4th Wave of COVID-19

Germany's acting Chancellor Angela Merkel called on leaders of her conservative party, on Monday, to tighten Covid measures ahead of Christmas.

“We are in a highly dramatic situation. What is in place now is not sufficient,” Merkel told CDU leaders in a meeting, according to two participants.

The number of covid cases in Germany has been soaring, especially among the elderly whose first two shots of COVID-19 vaccine were at the start of the year, and among children that are not eligible for inoculation.

Meanwhile, some 79% of adults in Germany have had two shots of the vaccine, but only 7.5% have received booster shots so far, as the total number of coronavirus deaths in Germany approaches 100,000.

Germany has already decided to limit large parts of public life in areas where hospitals are becoming full of Coronavirus patients to those who have either been vaccinated or have recovered from the illness.

However, Merkel believes that neither those measures nor a higher uptake of vaccinations would be enough to halt the rapid rise of infections. Hence, she urged Germany's 16 federal states to decide tough measures by Wednesday.

The country reported 30,643 new cases of COVID-19 on Monday and 62 deaths, with an incidence - the number of cases per 100,000 people over a week - of 386.5, a 15th consecutive day of record numbers.