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Germany’s Virus Infection Rate Rises Amid Local Outbreaks

Germany’s Virus Infection Rate Driven Higher by Local Outbreaks

Germany’s coronavirus infection rate jumped as more than 1,300 people working at a slaughterhouse tested positive.

The so-called reproduction factor rose to 2.88 on Sunday, according to the latest data from the Robert Koch Institute. That’s well above the government’s target of 1 and reflects a heightened risk of the disease flaring up again more widely in the country.

Outbreaks at the Toennies GmbH meat plant near the city of Guetersloh -- which was ordered to close last week -- and in apartment blocks in Goettingen are raising concerns about Germany’s decision to ease restrictions and get the country back to a degree of normality. The weekend was marked by demonstrations in both hotspots as participants protested against contact restrictions applied by local authorities.

“The Toennies outbreak is massive,” Chancellor Angela Merkel’s chief spokesman, Steffen Seibert, said at a regular news conference on Monday. “Everything must be done to contain the outbreak. It must be taken very seriously.”

Meat companies have been able to circumvent stricter rules on working conditions by using subcontractors, Labor Minister Hubertus Heil said Monday in an interview with ARD television. Heil said he would like new legislation due to take effect in Jan. 2021 to be brought forward, but that the government needs to make sure it’s legally watertight.

“Obviously rules have not been respected,” Heil said. “Under the conditions of the pandemic, this exploitation of workers has become a general health risk and can no longer be tolerated.”

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Outbreaks at Europe’s meat plants aren’t confined to Germany, with a few U.K. factories also reporting infections last week. That underlines the risk to the industry, which often employs migrant workers who may also commute together to work and share accommodation.

Federal and state politicians are seeking to play down any likelihood that blanket lockdown restrictions may return. So far, authorities have preferred to isolate individual properties -- such as an apartment block in Berlin’s Neukoelln district -- that are hit by a spate of infections.

Regional authorities are the first line of defense in case of renewed outbreaks, Seibert said at the briefing. Under German law, state governments have been mostly responsible for lockdown measures.

Tracing App

By most measures, Germany has handled the health crisis relatively well. The country implemented an aggressive testing program that helped keep casualties relatively low in Europe’s most populous state. Last week, it unveiled a tracing app that, according to Health Minister Jens Spahn, will help break infection chains and allow the country to manage the return to normality more quickly. So far, 11.8 million people have downloaded the app.

There were 602 new infections in Germany in the 24 hours through Monday morning, bringing the total to more than 191,000, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. The current infection rate means that out of 100 people who get infected, a further 288 people are likely to contract the virus.

Since case numbers in Germany are generally low, local outbreaks have a relatively strong influence on the R-value, according to the RKI. “Further developments need to be monitored closely during the upcoming days, especially in regard to whether case numbers are increasing outside of outbreak contexts,” the organization said.

The RKI also provides a seven-day R-value, which compensates for fluctuations. That value was 2.03 on Sunday, up from 1.55 the previous day. The RKI has sent epidemiologists and “containment scouts” who help track the spread to the region of Guetersloh, a health ministry spokeswoman said on Monday.

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.