A bad thing. Well of course we run the risk anyway by in relaxing restrictions as a race skull that you could increase the chance of seeing another spike in the number of current virus cases here in germany there are also new reports out that perhaps up to 10 times more people than previously thought actually currently have been as well infected by coronavirus here in germany many of them thought not to be showing symptoms so theres lots of variables still to take into consideration here and then of course you have to deal with the different states of course there is the advantage that different states can take a more targeted approach those be more worst hit perhaps they might not open their restaurants as early. As the restrictions on restaurants as early as some other states that havent been so badly hit by the coronavirus pandemic but of course then there are long term questions as well how does that affect travel around germany at the moment it is still recommended to keep travel to a to a limit to a minimum sorry here in germany and of course would probably or to the travel warning the Global Travel warning is very much still in place and will remain so until mid june but of course people will want to start moving around the country and the Holiday Season is upon us as well. As in the gastronomy sexer eager to see as well what might come out of this meeting today with merkel but it does seem that also the individual states will indeed be responsible for deciding to when and to what extent restaurants open hotels and also a number of other establishments as well so you do have the risk of inconsistency which could certainly become even more complicated as we when we eventually most likely start to see more people moving around the country again in research in the coming weeks. Ok we can see there is some movement right now to the press Briefing Room in the chancellor here in berlin so. Expecting to start her press conference pretty soon but before we let her do that just one more question for you the german public how does the german public see what the governments both the states and the federal government reacted to the crisis do they approve of the Political Leadership certainly i mean if you look at the polls at the moment the c. D. U. The conservative c. D. U. Angela merkels posse is riding high as around 38 percent huge increases in just a matter of weeks and also Angela Merkels popularity has shot up as well so clearly there is appetite very much of at the moment for how the government and im going macro and also the state premiers as well handling this pandemic of course the the state premiers have their own agendas as well to a certain extent and the has certainly been a sense of competition between some of them in recent weeks vying to be the 1st to to say that they have relaxed certain measures here in germany but of course that also comes with a very big risk that it might all still put germanys progress and relative success rate in handling the pandemic that could still be put in jeopardy. Kate weve heard from what is leaked before this press briefing that the. Lift the restrictions will be lifted quite significantly how much of that is down to pressure coming from the Business Community of the. Certainly theres been huge pressure from the from the Business Community since day one since businesses that were closed and of course that stands for huge businesses to tiny small self employed businesses as well and of course the Economic Forecast is not looking good for germany its that because forecasted to shrink by some 6. 3 percent in 2020 thats even more than juror in the financial crisis a decade ago or so oh a huge concerns here and as we saw already earlier this week some Smaller Stores has already been opening and they are hoping to make it through especially with that Financial Aid as well from the German Government weve seen historical figures signed off by the German Government to try and keep the economy trying keep Small Businesses big businesses all employees afloat by storing this pandemic and also after it the German Government just a few weeks ago signed a Financial Aid package of some 750000000000 euros historical figures not seen since the 2nd world war and the German Government also broke a massive to boot as well taking on new debt so they have said that they will do whatever it takes to keep the German Economy going but of course Economic Experts are still pointing at the moment to a deep recession so germany is still very much bracing itself for the worst but the car industry of course is hit very hard at the moment and yesterday german car bosses were talking to other markel about support measures for their industry theyre not the only industry that is crying out for for help really a lot of times are for example the german flag carrier is in dire straits as we know and might need a massive injection of cash from the government the government has already said set up a couple of packages that youve done that youve just mentioned about 750000000000 euros that how just how deep are germanys pockets at the moment. Theres a germany has said that it will do whatever it takes and having not taken on any new debt in many many years it found itself in quite a comfortable position where it rose was ready to hand out its Financial Aid to 2 millions of people across germany and keeping those Small Businesses afloat but of course as you mentioned that is growing pressure as well particularly from the Automobile Industry here in germany something thats been criticized by of the sexes within the business sector as well of the industries for the pressure that theyve been putting on the German Government of course the relationship the rather cozy relationship between the car industry here in germany and the German Government is something thats been a rather contentious issue for many years now and once again there were complaints criticism criticism right in front of angle of merkels front door at the chancellery even yesterday over the pressure that the car industry call obese putting on the German Government to help them with state funding of course there was no decision made and were expecting to see some progress on that front maybe by june but one proposal thats been put on the table right now by common factors and also is being supported by the state primary is of some of the socalled cost states where the cause of a manufactured here in germany is incentives to incentivize people to buy cars that could be anywhere between 34000. 00 euros per car but that faced at the mouth to invest and particularly in innovation and digitalisation instead of propping up the Old Industrial sexs the Old Industrial structures all of the Automobile Industry and the in of innovation particularly in the car industry is something that germany has been lagging behind on. For many years now and so many people are seeing this and want it want the government to wake up and say as well that this could be a chance to move germany forward and weve already seen in the last couple of weeks how germany has managed to propel its efforts on the digitalisation front practically overnight and it might sound rather bizarre to think of germany as you know the biggest economy in europe lagging behind on digitalize ation but ask anyone who lives here and theyll tell you the issues that they have whether its dealing with all of the paperwork here whether its dealing with the terrible internet and its something that has been become a to brady or rather badly kept secret would be a better way of describing it in germany in recent years so this is being seen by Industry Experts as a chance to finally bring germany completely into the 21st century as well despite the terrible circumstances in which we find ourselves in that of a pandemic. Kate i think theres some movement after the chancellor hope. Will now show up at the press Briefing Room and tell us exactly what she and the 16 state premiers have to decided in terms of lifting the lockdown on the many. German states. Still no movement right that its been hard kate for families in particular i think with this this lockdown here in germany. What has already leaked about School Closures when can children go back to school or will that also be different from state to state. Well that seems at least according to these leaks draft paper that could be a more National Measure and they aim at least on the National Level will be to get all School Children back into school by the summer break but of course again there will be a bit of leeway that i have to interrupt you and i sure you dont really mind but i do on the amount of finally there and lets listen in to what shes got to say one of them. With with very ladies and gentlemen a very good afternoon to you. Madam the most of your chance there and stick. And stay there sort of will never put you yes ladies and gentleman as we had announced some time ago that we have had the debates between the state premier and myself over the course of the afternoon today and i think we can safely state that the 1st phase of the pandemic is behind us but at the same time we need to be very much aware of the fact that we are still very much in the early phases and make and will be in it for the long haul here in the numbers that the robert cock institute has been reporting to us for some time now very good news let me emphasize that 14 days ago we had hoped that after the 1st initial steps of opening with shops we would see figures like this the figures that we had hoped for are there are still low so thats something im very pleased about the daily new infections are not logical digit anymore but even triple digit in some cases the reproduction factor theres below one only one county has over 50 acute care. This is for 1000 inhabitants and on the whole we have managed to reduce the infection chains and trace them properly and this has to do with the fact that we strengthened up the Public Health administration and i want to use that opportunity to thank. The members of the Public Health administration for their hard work it is aware that they have been so much of the focus of our attention in germany as they are at the moment lisa thank you. And this is why we find ourselves at a point where we can say that target which is to slow down the spread of the virus has been successful we have been able to ensure that we do not exceed the response capacity of the Public Health systems weve been able to achieve this because. Our citizens have shown real responsibility in charge here into the restrictions. In order to protect the lives of others in the community. As well as themselves the situation we find ourselves in at the moment means that it is possible in our discussion with the state premiers to conclude either way is eased into the lock down measures weve had a number of different concepts. Forward and various associations and representatives of other organizations have put forward a plan for restarting public life in germany and i think this is very good because this shows that the whole questions of hygiene rules and regulations that we must adhere to in a pandemic are accepted and indeed. Are being implemented in our daily lives we spoke at length today about the rules regulations that need to stay in place and we didnt have to discuss that too long. The physical distancing of 1. 5 meters as a minimum is necessary as well as mouth and nose coverings in public transport and shops and i think in other areas may be necessary as well as we open new. Parts of our lives and these may become by doing as well and weve also said that legal contact restrictions are a key element of approach which is why we have said that until the 5th of june we want to. Ensure that these contact restrictions may remain in place. Now however we are going to loosen things a little bit and say that we no longer only allowed in public without own households or one further person but that now we can actually have 2 households meet in public so our own household members of another household are now allowed to. Go out and be in public however we are retaining. Contact restrictions in other ways because we want to ensure that the virus doesnt spread too quickly and obviously decisions already made by individual federal states will be valid nonetheless we have also is that due to the fact that there are a whole range of individual regulations of when is what going to be opening and this is due to keeping a close eye on new rises of infections but theres also the federal state and whats important to them but despite that one thing thats important to me is that if we have differences in regional rules and if we suddenly have new rises of infections we have to say that if there are. Areas of new infections where were seeing spreads we need to be able to tighten things up again are you. We said that this is generally the case once again we stepped this up and asked if i theres a little bit more unsaid that the federal states have to ensure that in counties or cities where there are more than 50 new infections per 100000 inhabitants in the last 7 days. That a consistent concept for restricting content will be rolled out in accordance with the Public Health department if this is a localized infection say in a care home or a hospital or some other institution then this containment measure can only cover this particular incident however if it is spread and it is unclear what the change of infections and then we need to consistently introduce the measures to restrict the spread so that the value over 7 day period is below this 50 acute phase as per 100000 inhabitants at the moment we only have one county in all of germany where the. Rise of infections is above the 50 acute cases per 100000 inhabitants. But we also discussed tracing that is being developed and once again talked about a concept for schools as well that the ministers of education on the state level and the National Level have agreed and there are other things that we discuss that importance of school is very important but also day care and expanding Emergency Care for preSchool Children because we know that children quite rightly want to return to their normal lives as much as possible it will take time but the federal states have come up with concepts. To increasingly make this possible in another. Group of people who are very important are the Senior Citizens who have been Nursing Homes and to and you know dealing with not being able to see their family members and friends they havent been able to go out either and we know what more can only sense what that must feel like for them and these people need to ensure that if were talking about opening our society again and lifting up to measures that we must do something for them so it is now possible that one regular visitor may come and visit the person with disabilities or dementia in whatever Residential Home they are in. Their number of other areas that we looked at for example retail. We have now been lifted the ban on larger shops to be opened but of course there will soon main hygiene will as weve also talked about sports and recreation and of course the bundesliga. Which will be able to resume operations soon. And we also said that the federal states. You can also address many other areas that i havent covered here it could be by developing a concept for how to ease the restrictions step by step and i wont be able to cover all of these here is whats important that we have a concept for theatres cinema. And other cultural activities we discussed this there are. Religious services that have been carried out in an exemplary way adhering to all the rules and regulations of hygiene and the same must be done. For theater and operatic it was a very constructive discussion its hardly surprising that because of germanys federal division of powers there were differences in the individual federal states its not surprising but whats also important is that the hygiene rules have to be adhered to if this is true and if Food Service Industry you cant just have 2 tables that have to be 2 meters apart but also all if you have to do that with the more people who are not just 2 households sitting together but others then if you got you know one table thats 50 centimeters wide and youve got people sharing a seat a table and then not. 2 households joining together then that infringes on the hygiene rules at the same time we really feel that its important to make steps moving forward towards loosening restrictions both in schools childcare and Daycare Centers etc rather than not making any progress or better cautious progress than man so we have also looked at how we can lift some of the knock down measures but weve also said that should we see some kind of new rise of infections weve got an emergency mechanism in place and we dont have to lock down the whole country but rather individual regions and i believe this is a very well concluded agreement thank you madam chancellor i mean its ladies and gentleman you might see if you carry out an interim. Basis and look at where we are with corona we can say that we can breathe a small sigh of relief you know when we met here a few weeks ago the situation was much more worrying about things looked very dire and despite all of our worries i think we can be grateful at how well. Our country has dealt with this. The fact that the numbers are the way they are in the way theyre trained. And i think i speak for many of my colleagues as well if i say thank you to the people of germany because. You did it your wife it worked so well we are doing better than many other countries in coping with this crisis i think we can safely state that germany has done so well because our strategy was a good strategy and it was one that on a regional and on a National Level we all did what we could to make it happen and that we all stayed patient so the numbers are good even in those for just states who have more infections than others as we do in bavaria if we see that we have a situation were talking about 0. 5 percent increase we had 30 percent and the reproduction rate is below 0. 7 and its been a while now and if we look at the in entire population is 0. 005 of the population in the varia were actually infected but we cannot use up. The worries remain because it can change at any point and its very important to say that and till we have a vaccination until we have medications to treat this disease the danger is looming it is there but whats important in the common strategy that we have that we dont just ease out of this lockdown but that we remain careful and prudent and this is why the agreements that we have today arent just about how we can come out of this lockdown but how we can come out safely and we know that we always have to balance between our concept of security and our concept of freedom and we theel that that there are 2 groups in our population its almost like there are 2 schools of thought and there are those who are frightened as we ease things up and there are those whom want to go even faster and to strike a balance here we have to use reason but we also have to look at how we can be risky marriage of billies the lockdowns well i think each federal state is doing at this best they can and i also want to say thank you to the fact that many federal states even though they have a low level of infections much lower than others mr jentzsch and myself are federal states who are really impacted on because of the skiing for example there was a rise of infections there and of course that affected us as well but there are other federal states who didnt have so many cases expressed real solidarity so i think that germanys federal structure not least through the leadership on a National Level have really helped us is do as well as were doing so offering freedoms where we can but not neglecting safety this is why we need long term plans which is why we decided today that we wont meet every week now but rather meet less often. Than would have been but have our own. Vigil ministers meet for their individual area but obviously each state is slightly different so we in the very have more cases than others we are going to proceed more carefully we will be lifting the restrictions later. But that doesnt mean that as a whole room were not slowly opening that was the most but the most important thing is that reason and care be exerted here to make sure we dont have a relapse so the emergency brake that we have a great and that is the one that the robert cock institute has said with the figures that we refer to here that its kind of like our emergency policy should this case occur that we have this number of infections but 100000 then we must act. And to be there tomorrow it could be that we will have a regional pandemics with more tests and the conjuring personnel to support this to prevent the spread of infections which means that we hopefully will get a locked up for the entire country so this differentiation because of the number of infections that we have in the individual areas will help us to have a more targeted response for a new rise of infection so that it doesnt have to be the entire country responding here so this emergency break that weve agreed on todays in fact the key elements apart from all of the questions its more of what lockdown measures we want to lift as we have more freedom we also have to ensure that we can have a targeted response should there be a new rise of infections and i know that the chancellor is always looking at the figures in individual counties and wants to know why this county has more infections etc so what were doing now is me slowly relaxing kumo not really a van with restrictions but prudently be careful. So whats important is that caution must stay we cannot be good when it comes to improving our Health Care System it would be terrible if the efforts that we started to be stopped you would have the way we need to ensure that we continue to equip our Public Health administrations with good qualified staff and increase this and it should be better pages about this needs to be one of the top jobs in the country than the i. C. U. Beds that we have with ventilation weve upped this number of beds to 31 percent we need to increase it by 50 percent of area were going to need you need this i. C. U. Nurse and our Public Health systems and had an amazing response capacity but we need to up this as well the same is true for protective equipment we need to have masks we need to have a person protective equipment we need to ensure that we not only have enough but also have a stockpile for the future and we need to step up our research as well if we need more information we find out more every day and we need to look at how best to respond to infections of this kind and then the most important question and the key to the whole issue the 1st line defense is contact restriction since we have no medication since we have no vaccination this is our 1st line of defense hygiene is the next step but its contact destruction is really important so weve agreed on an important compromise that we have contacts directions manes you have to stay at physical distance but where it is traceable apart from ones own household in the various we have made it possible for 2 people for people to meet their own relations you know your parents brother sister grandparents and i guess that theres also the option of one household meeting another household with one family meeting another house or maybe you meet maybe go out for dinner or Something Like that thats trackable and its not. You its what. You dont want to have is great big parties where you cannot track people afterwards you cannot track the infection chains if you havent got that ability to tract infection change the outbreak of the infection it will spread lets break away and this is why news gone out there and promise marcos was speaking after angloamerican has outlined plans for the lifting of some of the restrictions on public life here in germany lets speak again with our Political Correspondent kate brady who has listened into that whole presence conference theyve run us through some of the details of what the main points for you