German Chancellor Angela Merkel predicted on Wednesday that Covid-19’s “historic crisis” will continue in 2021, even though vaccination brings hope.
“These days and weeks (…) are difficult times for our country. And it will last a long time, ”he said in his speech anticipating the new year.
Germany was hit hard by the second wave of the covid-19 pandemic and had to decree a new partial confinement until at least 10 January.
“The challenges that the pandemic poses to us remain immense,” he said, thanking the Germans who respected the restrictions on contacts to stop the spread of contagions.
Despite the “difficult times”, Merkel stressed that “hope had a face, that of the first vaccinated”, namely in homes. Germany began the vaccination campaign against covid-19 on Saturday, one day ahead of other European Union countries, such as Portugal.
In her speech, the German chancellor criticized the covid-19 skeptics movement, illustrated by several demonstrations in the country.
“I can only imagine the bitterness felt by those who mourn a loved one because of the coronavirus, or those who continue to suffer the consequences, when the existence of the coronavirus is contested or denied by some,” he pointed out, pointing out that “the conspiracy theories they are not only false and dangerous, but also cynical and cruel ”.
On Wednesday, Germany surpassed the 1,000 daily covid-19 deaths for the first time, a figure partly explained by the health authority by the incomplete data record during the holiday season.
Since the beginning of the pandemic in the country, 32,107 people have died, of the more than 1.6 million infected.
The covid-19 pandemic caused at least 1,791,033 deaths resulting from more than 81.9 million cases of infection worldwide, according to a report by the French news agency AFP.
Covid-19 is a respiratory disease caused by a new coronavirus (type of virus) detected in late December 2019 in Wuhan, a city in central China.
