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BERLIN. – Germany is heading towards stiffer restrictions on people who have refused a Covid-19 vaccine, as authorities across Europe seek to rein a renewed surge in the pandemic.

Europe’s largest economy is grappling with its worst outbreak, posting a record in its contagion rate on Tuesday. The country’s response has been complicated by a change in power, with Chancellor Angela Merkel in a caretaker role while negotiations to form a new government continue. 

Under pressure to act, legislators from the potential governing coalition are planning to introduce legislation later this week that would impose tougher curbs on people who haven’t been inoculated, including requiring tests to go to work and take public transportation. 

“That is in reality a lockdown for the unvaccinated that’s on the way,” Dirk Wiese, deputy caucus leader for the SPD in German parliament, said on ZDF television yesterday.  

With less than 70 percent fully immunised against the disease, Germany is lagging European peers such as Spain, Italy and Portugal on vaccine uptake, helping to catapult Germany into a devastating new outbreak. 

Daily infection rates are breaking records set when the population was mostly defenceless against Covid-19. The country’s Robert Koch Institute on Tuesday reported yet another increase in the nationwide contagion rate. 

Cases over the past seven days climbed to a record 312,4 per 100 000 people. Deaths jumped by 265, the steepest one-day increase since May 27. – Bloomberg