Christian Drosten, advisor to the German government on the coronavirus pandemic, has demanded the suspension of free tests to diagnose the disease that are carried out at Berlin’s Tegel airport for travelers coming from countries or regions at risk.
The assumption for the first time in the history of the European Union of common debt with the approval of the reconstruction fund to face the economic consequences of the coronavirus epidemic will not be an exceptional measure for times of crisis.”The reconstruction fund is a real progress for Germany and Europe that is no longer going backwards”, affirms the Federal Vice Chancellor and German Minister of Finance, Olaf Scholz, in statements to the Funke group newspapers. The EU takes on common debt for the first time to apply it in a crisis and also undertakes to start paying it back shortly, explains Scholz, who considers that “these are profound changes, perhaps the biggest changes since the introduction of the euro.” The Social Democratic candidate for the Federal Chancellery emphasizes that now it will be inevitable to also talk about common income in the EU, which could improve the European Union’s capacity for action. ‘This can quickly become relevant.
The controls to carry out mandatory coronavirus tests on the border between Austria and Slovenia have caused long queues and hours of delay for vehicles that intend to enter the Alpine republic, many of them with holidaymakers returning to their homes in Western Europe. In front of the border post in the Karawankel tunnel, considered Austria’s gateway to the Balkan countries, the queue of cars exceeded ten kilometers this Saturday. In social networks, an affected person who is back in the German state of Bavaria has reported that to travel three kilometers he has needed more than six hours. There is no type of supply, the environment is aggressive and among those trapped at the border there are many families with children, reports the German agency DPA. Austria has reacted with drastic controls on its border to the increase in infections in Croatia or other countries in the region. Those who intend to enter the country have to present a negative coronavirus test or undergo a two-week quarantine and those who return from Croatia are registered separately.
The German virologist Christian Drosten, adviser to the German government on the coronavirus pandemic, has demanded the suspension of free tests to diagnose the disease that are carried out at Berlin’s Tegel airport for travelers coming from countries or regions at risk in a Open letter to the mayor-governor of the city, Michael Müller. Drosten has warned that due to the worldwide limitation of quotas for reagents and materials for these tests, the capacities to perform these tests are being exhausted. The letter, also signed by the heads of the Berlin laboratories,
In similar terms, the virologist and social democratic deputy Karl Lauterbach has also expressed himself, who demands that the policy for conducting coronavirus tests be rethought. «The problem of the shortage of tests is going to be enormous in the coming weeks. The supply for the current testing capabilities is lacking not only in Germany. This fall we will be forced to prioritize who will be tested, “says Lauterbach in a message on Twitter, in which he stresses that the problem can only be solved” by concentrating on the sources of contagion and ordering quarantines. ”
Lars Feld, president of the Five Wise Men, the group of experts that advises the German government on economic matters, has warned that a new halt or closure of activities in Germany due to the coronavirus “would mean a catastrophe for the economy” and would entail “ the danger of a permanent weakening of growth ‘. Feld assures that “a second closure would interrupt the economic recovery phase” and warns that “a number of companies that have still managed to survive in the current recovery phase would inevitably be doomed to insolvency.”
