BERLIN (Reuters) – Chancellor Angela Merkel told party colleagues on Monday that existing lockdown measures in place in Germany would not be sufficient to get the country through the winter, participants at the meeting said.
“Relying on hope won’t help us,” she told legislators from her conservative bloc in a discussion of the rising numbers of coronavirus cases in Germany, participants at the meeting said.
“The situation is getting very serious: these measures will not be enough to get us through the winter,” the participants quoted her as saying, implying that a further tightening of restrictions would be needed.
A partial lockdown and social distancing rules in place since the start of November have slowed, but not stopped the spread of the disease.
(Reporting by Andreas Rinke, writing by Thomas Escritt; Editing by Paul Carrel)
