BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany’s federal and state governments agreed on Thursday to measures aimed at tackling a fourth wave of COVID-19, including restrictions on the number of people who can meet inside and closures to discos and clubs above threshold case numbers.
“We have understood that the situation is very serious and that we want to take further measures in addition to those already taken,” Chancellor Angela Merkel told a news conference.
“To do this, the fourth wave must be broken and this has not yet been achieved,” she said, adding that a nationwide vaccination mandate could take effect from February 2022 after it is debated in the Bundestag and after guidance from Germany’s Ethics Council.
(Writing by Paul Carrel, editing by Thomas Escritt)