German Finance Minister Calls for Clear Rules to Respond to Incidence Rates Over 100
21 April 2021
By David Barwick – Frankfurt (Econostream) – German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz on Wednesday called for clear, uniform rules that describe the public health response to Covid-19 incidence rates of over 100.In a speech before German parliament, Scholz said that ‘because the situation remains serious, something must be done beyond what we have done so far.’
‘What we need now is clarity and consistency in answering the question: What happens if the incidence rates, if the infection figures rise too much?’, he asked. ‘We say: If the incidence values go above 100, then something must be done, and - this is part of the clarity and consistency - everywhere in Germany and also always and in every case.’
The German vaccination campaign is making ‘great progress’, he said. ‘I want to say explicitly that the fact that more than 16 million citizens have now been vaccinated for the first time, that more than 20 percent of the population has been vaccinated, is progress that, because of its speed, also makes it possible to see that we have a chance of perhaps sitting in a beer garden again in the summer.’