Covid rule-breakers could be put into quarantine centres in Germany
Germans who keep refusing to self-isolate after being exposed to Covid-19 are set to be held in detention centres and cordoned-off areas of refugee camps.
Regional authorities are planning to take more drastic action against rule-breakers by forcing them into quarantine, as the country extends its national lockdown until February amid fears over the mutant strains.
Officials in Schleswig-Holstein, in the north of the country, are turning a youth detention centre into a quarantine site for those who flout rules and refuse to self-isolate.
The eastern state of Saxony has already confirmed plans to hold rule-breakers in a fenced off section of a refugee camp set to be built next week. The state of Brandenburg, which includes the capital Berlin, is also planning to cordon off a refugee centre under similar plans.
Officials in Saxony insisted the facility will not be used for first-time rule-breakers, but for those who have repeatedly ignored the law and are facing fines.
Meanwhile, the south-western state of Baden-Württemberg said it is planning to use two police-guarded hospital rooms to hold repeat offenders, according to local media.
Legal experts told Die Welt newspaper that state Governments have the powers to hold those flouting the rules under emergency laws granted by the German Bundestag amid the pandemic.
The plans come as Chancellor Angela Merkel and leaders of Germany’s 16 states agreed to extend and tighten the country’s lockdown until February 14.
New rules will see ‘clinical’ masks become mandatory in shops and on public transport – meaning cloth masks or scarves will be banned.
Germany shuttered restaurants, leisure and sporting facilities in November, then expanded the shutdown in mid-December to include schools and most shops to halt runaway growth in new coronavirus infections.
Ms Merkel’s spokesman Steffen Seibert said the measures have so far brought about a ‘flattening of the infections curve’ and that the number of patients in intensive care had also fallen slightly.
He said the trend is ‘cautiously positive’, and an achievement of the restrictions of the last few weeks.
‘But it only brings us to the point where we still have a long way to go before we can say we have the infections under control,’ he added.
However, he said variants first seen in the UK, South Africa and Brazil could jeopardise their efforts.
Mr Seibert continued: ‘It is a risk that responsible politicians must take into account – sooner rather than later.’
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