Germany writes open letter to Britain praising Covid vaccine success
Germany’s biggest newspaper has written an article praising the UK approach to vaccination.
It starts off in letter format, with the headline saying: ‘Dear British, WE ENVY YOU!’ (‘Liebe Briten, WE BENEIDEN YOU!’)
The article goes on to talk about Boris Johnson’s roadmap out of lockdown, where he anticipated that England should be free of restrictions on socialising by June 21 if all goes to plan.
It shows photographs of newspaper front pages such from the Mirror and the Express printed after the news, praising a return to ‘freedom’.
The Bild article says: ‘While the British are already planning their summer vacation, Germany is stuck in lockdown.
‘BECAUSE: Chancellor Angela Merkel, who on Monday announced that the CDU committees would be relaxed, raised the alarm again yesterday!’
The article compares the level of vaccination in the UK to that in Germany, saying that a total of 17.7 million British people have already received at least one vaccination, whereas the figure in Germany is only 3.4 million.
German chancellor Angel Merkel recently warned that the country was now experiencing a ‘third wave’ of coronavirus, the newspaper said, saying she did not want to see ‘exponential growth’ in the number of infections.
According to John Hopkins University, there have been 68,912 deaths linked to coronavirus in Germany, compared to 121,978 in the UK.
The current nationwide shutdown in Germany is due to last until March 7 – having been imposed in November – with a potential extension to be discussed by regional leaders on March 3.
But some restrictions are set to be softened slightly ahead of that date, with hairdressers allowed to reopen from March 1 subject to strict hygiene measures.
Schools and daycare centres are also starting to reopen, with individual states having control of how they approach lifting restrictions on education.
Employers must allow all those who can to work from home until at least March 15.
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