The premiers of two southern German states badly hit by the coronavirus pandemic urged leaders in the rest of the country to reintroduce tougher lockdown measures to try to contain a third wave of infections, a newspaper reported on Wednesday.
Markus Söder, Bavaria premier and a possible conservative candidate to succeed the chancellor, Angela Merkel, and Winfried Kretschmann, the leader of Baden-Wuerttemberg, wrote in a joint letter that the situation was “more serious than many believe”.
“That is why we must live up to our responsibility now and not discuss it any longer,” they wrote in a letter reported by the Süddeutsche Zeitung daily.
Bavaria and Baden-Wuerttemberg are among the German states that have seen the highest number of deaths in the pandemic, with 13,239 and 8,684 respectively.
The number of new coronavirus cases in Germany as a whole jumped by 17,051 on Wednesday, bringing the total to 2.8 million with a death toll of 76,342.
