Name: Row as Germany heads into full Christmas lockdown
Brand: telegraph.co.uk
SKU: telegraph-co-uk-436
Availability: OnlineOnly

critic

Row as Germany heads into full Christmas lockdown

preview

Prominent German scientists spoke out on Monday as a senior minister called on people not to go Christmas shopping.Peter Altmaier, the economy minister, urged Germans not to crowd city centres in what will be the final two days of shopping before full lockdown begins on Wednesday, warning: “The next two days could be decisive”.&nbsp;But senior German scientists condemned the decision to go into full lockdown and called instead for targeted measures to protect the elderly and most at risk.&nbsp;“The most important thing is that we need a sustainable strategy. A sequence of lockdowns is not a long-term strategy,” Prof Jonas Schmidt-Chanasit, a virologist at Hamburg university.“Don't get me wrong, I'm still in favor of additional measures...But the highest priority must be to protect the most vulnerable.”Prof Schmidt-Chanasit was one of three scientists to speak out in a series of interviews with Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper.“Why are we now facing a full lockdown with all the immense damage it will cause? &nbsp;That doesn't make sense to me at all,” said Prof Gerd Antes, a retired medical statistician formerly of Freiburg university. “We have to focus on the protection of risk groups.”Klaus Stöhr, a former head of the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) flu programme, cast doubt on whether the new lockdown would achieve any more than Germany’s existing measures, which he said had already reduced flu infections by 90 per cent.“That means the spread of the coronavirus has presumably also been reduced by almost 90 per cent,” he said.&nbsp;“You have to ask yourself: is it possible to get the numbers any lower in Germany?”The country has been under “lockdown lite” for six weeks, with restaurants and places of entertainment closed, and facemasks compulsory in shops and crowded areas.In an apparent U-turn,&nbsp;&nbsp;Jens Spahn, the German health minister, called on the European Union to speed up its approval of the BioNTech-Pfizer vaccine.Just two weeks ago, Mr Spahn dismissed the UK’s swift approval of the vaccine, saying: “The point is not to be first but to have safe and effective vaccines. Nothing is more important than confidence when it comes to vaccines.”But in a series of tweets on Sunday he appeared to change his mind, saying: “All necessary data on BioNTech are available. UK + US have already issued approvals….review and approval should take place as soon as possible...this is also a question of citizens’ confidence in the EU’s ability to act.”&nbsp;Related TopicsAdvertisementRelated TopicsWe rely on advertising to help fund our award-winning journalism.We urge you to turn off your ad blocker for The Telegraph website so that you can continue to access our quality content in the future.Thank you for your support.Need help?Visit ourpage.Close

Prominent German scientists spoke out on Monday as a senior minister called on people not to go Christmas shopping.Peter Altmaier, the economy minister, urged Germans not to crowd city centres in what will be the final two days of shopping before full lockdown begins on Wednesday, warning: “The next two days could be decisive”.&nbsp;But senior German scientists condemned the decision to go into full lockdown and called instead for targeted measures to protect the elderly and most at risk.&nbsp;“The most important thing is that we need a sustainable strategy. A sequence of lockdowns is not a...

public

Novelist & journalist. Berlin correspondent for Daily Telegraph.

Justin Huggler

Think ahead with the latest news, comment, analysis and video. Subscribe here: https://telegraph.co.uk/customer/subscribe

telegraph.co.uk

Credible

Speculation

Anecdotal Evidence

Generalization

Stacking the Deck

Appeal to Authority

Straw Man

Slippery Slope

Emotional Appeal

Red Herring

False Dilemma

Illogical

Moral Equivalency

Ad Hominem

Correlation w/o Causation

Semantics

Begging the Question

Faulty Analogy

Non Sequitur

Bandwagon

Dogmatism

Failing Occam's Razor

Biased

Pure Opinion

Hit Piece

Racial Bias

National Bias

Religious Bias

Financial Incentive

Political Agenda

Gender Bias

Misused Image/Video

Study Misinterpreted

Mistake

Misused Term

Science Misrepresented

Factual Error

Satire

Surface Level

Lack of Reliable Sources

Sensational

Not Credible

Investigative

Balanced

Well Sourced

Great Context

sports

entertainment

U.S.

international

business

technology

science

culture

politics

media

health

Row as Germany heads into full Christmas lockdown

No article scores yet.

CRITIC REVIEWS

PUBLIC REVIEWS