The state’s Prime Minister Armin Laschet introduced that the whole district of Guetersloh — residence to greater than 360,000 folks — can be locked down for the following seven days.
Laschet stated the brand new lockdown would mirror the measures imposed on a nationwide stage earlier within the Covid-19 pandemic.
Group conferences have been banned, and faculties, daycare facilities, museums, eating places, pubs, swimming swimming pools, gyms and different public locations pressured to shut or drastically restrict the variety of folks allowed in at anyone time.
Meetings between members of various households have been restricted to 2 folks at a time. Shops will stay open, however solely with strict hygiene measures in place.
The plant has been shut since final week. All of its 7,000 native staff and their households have been ordered into lockdown, even when they haven’t examined optimistic for the virus.
On Tuesday, these restrictions had been broadened to cowl the whole district. “You must stay in quarantine,” Laschet stated throughout a information convention on Tuesday, including that police will implement the lockdown if essential.
He stated that whereas the outbreak has up to now been restricted to the manufacturing facility, public well being officers do not understand how many individuals may have come into contact with somebody who had been contaminated previously few days.
Local public well being officers at the moment are racing to include the outbreak via a large-scale check and hint program.
Everyone working on the manufacturing facility has already been examined, in keeping with the district’s web site. Laschet stated 100 cellular testing groups had been combing via the district to establish anybody who could have been contaminated.
North-Rhine Westphalia is Germany’s most populous state, with virtually 18 million inhabitants.
In the seven days to Monday, the whole state reported 1,860 new circumstances of the novel coronavirus. That statistic means that whereas the outbreak has been extreme, it has up to now been largely confined to the manufacturing facility and its staff.
Laschet stated Tuesday that solely 24 coronavirus circumstances have been recognized exterior the manufacturing facility up to now.
Germany has up to now recorded 192,127 circumstances and eight,909 deaths associated to the novel coronavirus — charges which might be comparatively low in in comparison with different European international locations.
The authorities has been credited with appearing early within the pandemic and scaling up the nation’s testing capability. German hospitals have even been in a position to settle for sufferers from different, extra embattled, European international locations.
