Bavaria broke rank on Friday as the first of Germany’s 16 federal states to impose a total curfew on its citizens to contain the spread of coronavirus.
The two-week movement ban on 13 million Bavarians, imposed at midnight on Saturday morning was followed by the small southwestern state of Saarland.
That makes it more likely that the rest of Germany will follow suit on Sunday as the number of confirmed cases topped 17,000, up 3,000 in a day, with 44 deaths.
Aides to Angela Merkel warn that if people continue to visit parks at the weekend in large numbers, ignoring a televised plea from the chancellor to self-isolate, a total lockdown will be imposed.
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“We are almost completely winding down public life in Bavaria,” said Bavarian premier Markus Söder at a press conference on Friday. “From tomorrow it’s even more imperative: stay at home and only go out in exceptional circumstances.”
He said the measure was due to a large increase in the number of coronavirus cases in Bavaria: up 35 per cent from Thursday to Friday with deaths jumping from 10 to 15.
He said his government could “no longer accept” large numbers of public gatherings and promised the two-week measures would not cause “cabin fever”. As in other European countries, people will be allowed leave their home only for limited, targeted tasks such as shopping or individual exercise.
Health warnings
Germany’s federal disease-control body, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), has attacked ongoing public gatherings in spite of repeated health warnings. “We can only slow down this epidemic if everyone plays by the rules,” said Dr Lothar Wieler, RKI president.
His institution has been granted access to anonymised mobile phone location data to analyse how much – or how little – people are restricting their movements.
With that data in mind, Dr Merkel’s chief of staff, Helge Braun, said that “Saturday is a decisive day” in Germany’s battle to contain coronavirus. “We will look at the behaviour of the population this weekend,” he said.
A decision is likely on Sunday, when Dr Merkel meets state premiers with the ultimate competence to impose further movement restrictions.
As the spreading epidemic turns daily life on its head, along with Europe’s largest economy, a new crisis is looming in one of the Germany’s most beloved culinary traditions.
Travel restrictions across Europe mean Germany is experiencing a shortage of seasonal workers to harvest the white asparagus beginning to poke out of the ground. About 23,000 hectares of German farmland is dedicated to the so-called “queen of the vegetables” but the €700 million business is facing disaster.
Of the 280,000 seasonal workers required, only about a fifth have shown up. Recent years have seen a shift eastwards in workers, away from Poland to Bulgaria and Romania. But most have been kept away by sealed borders. Bus drivers are unwilling to travel because they face long queues on borders and 14 days’ quarantine on their return. Other workers coming by aircraft, mostly with Ryanair, have had their flights cancelled.
Simon Schumacher, head of one lobby group representing 600 asparagus and strawberry growers, said: “The sun is shining, the asparagus is ready to be harvested but there’s no one here to do it.”
