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GERMAN CHANCELLOR ANGELA Merkel is in quarantine after meeting a doctor who tested positive for the novel coronavirus, as Germany further tightens rules on public gatherings.
News of Merkel’s potential exposure to the virus came minutes after she announced a ban on public gatherings of more than two people and further infection control measures.
“The Chancellor has decided to quarantine herself immediately at home. She will be tested regularly in the coming days… (and) fulfil her official business from home,” spokesman Steffen Seibert said in a statement.
Merkel had been slated to lead a cabinet meeting tomorrow to sign off on a €822 billion slew of measures to support Europe’s top economy through the shutdowns of public life designed to slow the infection’s spread.
The infected doctor visited Merkel on Friday to vaccinate her against the pneumococcus bacteria.
It could take some days to determine whether the 65-year-old chancellor is herself infected as “a test would not yet be fully conclusive,” Seibert said.
Merkel showed no apparent symptoms of ill health in Sunday’s televised press conference.
Robust health
During her 15-year term in office the chancellor has largely enjoyed robust health, although she suffered repeated shaking spells in public appearances during a summer 2019 heatwave that were never fully explained.
In response to the tremors, she chose to sit on a chair when receiving guests with military honours outside the chancellor’s office in Berlin.
Previously the veteran leader broke her pelvis in a cross-country skiing accident in 2014.
It was not immediately clear whether Merkel will isolate herself in a rarely-used official residence in the top floor of the chancellery building or at her personal flat in Berlin’s museum district.
Wearing one of her trademark block-colour blazers, she had been seen doing her own shopping at a local supermarket late on Saturday, buying items including wine and toilet paper.
If conservative leader Merkel were incapacitated, her role would be filled by vice-chancellor and finance minister Olaf Scholz of her junior coalition partners, the centre-left Social Democratic Party (SPD).
Scholz last week isolated himself at home with a heavy cold, but tweeted a day later that he had tested negative for the coronavirus.
Infection control
Earlier today, Merkel had announced still-tighter restrictions on public gatherings after a telephone conference with regional leaders that aimed to get Germany’s 16 federal states into a common policy.
The restrictions ban public gatherings of more than two people but their exceptions, including for families living under the same roof and going out together for fresh air.
“Our own behaviour is the most effective way” of slowing the rate of infection, Merkel said of the unprecedented nationwide measures, which are initially slated to remain in force for two weeks.
The measures will be imposed by individual states, who will decide when to roll them out.
The closure of schools and non-essential shops had already been announced. Businesses like massage studios and hairdressers where people come into close contact will also be shut. And restaurants will be closed across Germany except for takeaway food.
Merkel appealed to citizens’ “reason and empathy” in implementing the contact restrictions, saying she had been “very moved” by how closely people had stuck to less stringent measures implemented in recent days.
The Robert Koch Institute, Germany’s disease control authority, said early today the number of confirmed coronavirus cases had grown by almost 2,000 in the previous 24 hours, to 18,610.
So far 55 Germans have died of the disease.
Economic riposte
Germany’s all-out support to the economy on the cabinet agenda tomorrow includes hundreds of billions of euros in potential support for companies and workers.
Much of it will come in the form of state guarantees for bank loans to business and easier access to short-time working and unemployment benefits.
But Berlin also plans to blow through a constitutional rule that limits the size of the federal budget deficit in any one year, with around 156 billion euros in new borrowing.
Ending the crisis “comes first”, Merkel has said, adding “we will see at the end of that where our budget stands”.
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Be fast
Have no regrets
You must be the first mover
If you need to be right before you move, you will never win
Perfection is the enemy of the good
Speed trumps perfection
Everyone is afraid of making a mistake
Everyone is afraid of the consequence of error
But the greatest error is not to move
The greatest error is to be paralysed by the fear of failure
Dr Michael Ryan
WHO Executive Director
@Grumpeee Oldman: we need a lock down …..
@Grumpeee Oldman: You are just SO, SO right. Not wanting to be a panic spreader, but we need to take this deadly serious.
@Grumpeee Oldman: EU is going have to look at this about open borders between it independent sovereign states when this carnage ends! the only open I want is on the island of Ireland!
@Camacsaint: we need to lock Britain away from us for a start, it’s getting completely out of control over there.
@Bobby wilson: Why? The virus doesn’t care about our man made borders.
Free movement of people? What will they do stop people from going on holidays in future? Introduce visas? For what? The virus doesn’t care.
@Laughable: we need lock down dundalk from the rest of co Louth!
@John Hazelnut: Thanks for spreading Dr Michael Ryan (W. H. O.) ‘s words. I desperately need to get off the comments section.
@Bobby wilson: Why is Dundalk an island? Clown!
@Grumpeee Oldman: read the 5th paragraph and you’ll understand.
@Laughable: why not have a open borders for the whole the world onto the island of ireland! then we won’t need need visas at all
@Dalya Al-Tulaihi: sorry wrong thread.
@Laughable: You have the right name because of your comments. How come you are only obsessed with the UK the virus hit the UK on the 31st of January the same as Italy and Spain, it was first recorded in France on the 27 January and the deaths are Italy 5476 Spain 1770 France 674 and the UK 281 and you say the virus is out of control in Britain and they need to be locked away, I think its definitely is much more out of control in main land Europe but I think for now all countries should close their borders not just stay away from the UK. If I was you I would worry about food because if this continues for months some of the big food producing countries will not be producing much and because of EU laws, rules and regulations where is Ireland going to get its food from and how is it going to get to you??
You have to hand it to the Germans, they really are just good at pretty much everything. And they’ve good beer too.
@Laughable: No more threesomes though!!!
FFG will wait and see …
We will pay…
@Willy Mc Entire:
Bore off.
The response has been excellent so far – way ahead of what the UK is doing.
@Willy Mc Entire: FFG are handling this very well. The bigger problem now isn’t about our borders being open it’s the idiots gathering in large numbers and spreading the virus.
@Lily Martin: Yes and the idiots in government allowing it, just like they allowed all the flights in from Northern Italy with no protective measures. Some serious questions need to be answered on this.
Simple. True colours shine through…
@Lily Martin: ffg are good at making it look that way… They always have been. Ask actual health care workers how they are doing you’ll get a different picture!
What’s with the subheading.
“Give her a vaccination “ ??
Do we have one?
Was is something else or a typo?
@Philip King ⚡️: for bacterial pneumonia . Not for viral pneumonia the type caused by covid . Bacterial pneumonia can also develop alongside the viral pneumonia in some cases .
@Philip King ⚡️: wondering the same myself. I’ve heard of a couple of trails but this is another level all together
@Philip King ⚡️: read 5th paragraph and you’ll understand.
@Jim Buckley Barrett: 5th paragraph.
@Dalya Al-Tulaihi: thanks, missed that but a miss leading heading at well
Well I had suggested we ban gatherings of more than 20 people and was ridiculed for making such an outlandish suggestion. I think it makes sense today and even then people should social distance. Really hope all of our isolation kills the transfer of this disease off long enough for a cure to arrive.
Everyone has their own house in Germany ?
@Lapsy Pa: Apartments are more common
Hard to do only have gatherings of two you may as well lockdown
She could do with staying in,big tragedy head on her
How are Germany recording their deaths? Is that a true reflection 55/18000+?
@Everyone’sgonecrazy: They have strong manufacturing industries and lots of ventilators keeping patients alive. Same as China they have literally millions of those things. Ireland however doesn’t so we can not risk it and let the number go up any higher or our death rate will be like that of Italy’s!!!
@Seriousnojoke: We supply the feckin ventilators.
Do you not know we have some of the largest medical device companies in Europe located here?
Why do people come here and make comments without a fkin clue what they’re talking about.
@Seriousnojoke: Germans have have a high level of civic responsibility, not unlike China. They tend to do as their government tells them. That’s why they’re doing well along with having the best health service in Europe.
@Laughable: has the irish govt requisioned the irish company’s production of ventilators?Until we’ve got all we need as a country? if not, why not?
@Laughable: Having lived in Germany for nearly a decade and worked in their hospitals, you are absolutely spot on. Germans have a immense sense of civic duty and of what is for the greater good (despite what many here will protest). They also have the highest number of ICU beds per head of the population in Europe.
@Philip Kavanagh: they are richest state in the EU too!
@Everyone’sgonecrazy: a commenter here the other day said that Germany is recording deaths where there is Covid 19 with an underlying illness as resulting from the underlying illness not as Covid 19 deaths.
@Everyone’sgonecrazy: what I heard, don’t know if it’s true of course, is that when a person with a pre-existing condition dies in Germany, the cause of death is recorded as cancer, with covid. Elsewhere, it’s recorded as covid, with cancer, for example. May not be true, but could account for the differences.
@Anne Warren: we don’t have a shortage of ventilators, production has been ramped up to help our European brothers and sisters.
It’s a shortage of hospital ICU beds that could affect us the most.
@Anne Marie Devlin: Care to provide evidence of this or just spout regurgitated stuff you read from social media? Why would the Germans do that, makes no sense at all.
@Bobby wilson: No they aren’t, they have the biggest Economy because they have the highest population, not the richest per capita, that’s Luxembourg.
@Anne Warren: That’s just a stupid thing to ask. Imagine other governments requisitioning vital medical supplies that we need but are not manufactured here – you wouldn’t be long complaing about that im betting as we go without.
No doubt any vaccination developed won’t be created in any vast quantities here either. So should we wait while those governments requisition those also? You would be ok with that?
@Laughable: yeah! you should have been a spin doctor!
@Bobby wilson: hahahahaha, simple google “EU countries GNI per capita” educate yourself.
@Everyone’sgonecrazy: Germany’s initial infections were generally fit people back from skiing in Italy. They’re expecting to catch up with other countries’ death rates once it spreads further.
@Philip Kavanagh: Ireland has 1/2 the ICU beds per head of popualtion compared to Italy, and a 1/5th of ICU beds compared to Germany.
@Seriousnojoke: Horse sh/t if you have an underlying condition they are saying you died from that and not the virus
@Philip Kavanagh: An easily led people! Only goes to show why Hitler and his gang had them jumping through hoops.
She’s been in political quarantine for months. Is she still leader of Germany?
Things Just very very Real
Poor Angela. Her health wasn’t great before either by the sounds of it. Hopefully she will be okay
The German people were criticizing their strategy originally because it was not as aggressive as the Swiss. The Swiss were the first to impose very strict bans on mass gatherings. What the Germans have got right since is that they have focused on the test, test, test advice of WHO, which has worked well in South Korea. Whereas the Swiss now say we are all going to get it, so they are only testing those with symptoms who are over 65, have underlying conditions or have been admitted to hospital. Germany also has the highest number of ICU beds per head of population in Europe. At the moment both Germany and Switzerland are taking French patients requiring ICU into hospitals, where they have capacity, but that capacity is rapidly disappearing in both countries.
The Musketeers, Stooges and Chipmunks are all screwed so
If Merkel gets covid 19 shes a goner. Metabolically in bits
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