Berlin-Every weekday at 11am come to the Berliner Zeitung English Edition for the latest corona/Covid-19 news at a glance.
🚥 First, the official corona stats for Berlin (tallied Tuesday, 6 October)
🔴 R number: 1.26 (1.36 Monday)
🔴 New infections per week: 44.2 / 100,000 inhabitants (41.5 Monday)
🟢 Percentage of Covid-19 patients in intensive care: 3.1 per cent (3.1 per cent Monday)
Total number of corona deaths: 231 (no change)
Source: Berlin's coronavirus status page
Meistgelesene Artikel
The lowdown...
The bike paths are staying
A regional court Tuesday ruled that the pop-up bike paths Berlin politicians erected during the pandemic can stay. The AfD (🤮) successfully sued in a lower court to have the paths removed because they claimed they presented a danger to drivers. The court Tuesday said the earlier ruling was probably wrong and even if it wasn't, the paths pose no danger to automobile users, but maybe a headache.
Role modelling
Wolfgang Schäuble (CDU), president of Germany's lower house of parliament, Tuesday ordered everyone in the building to wear masks pretty much all the time unless they're giving a speech. The new rules affect all 10,000 Bundestag employees and politicians, including those from the rightwing AfD, who have been mask-resistant because ... they're in the AfD. Incidentally, 39 Bundestag employees have tested positive for corona since the start of the pandemic.
And now for something completely corona
German comedian Oliver Polak joined with producer Erobique to create this pandemic's anthem: Forever Corona, which was released this week. Like all the best German music, it's in English, just like our news site.
Rules, rules, rules
If you haven't heard yet, Berlin passed new corona rules Tuesday after two of its three warning traffic lights turned red. No more than five people – or two households – can meet in public. Private parties are now limited to no more than 10 people. Bars, restaurants and Spätis also have to close from 11pm to 6am. People are calling it a curfew - but we're not quite there yet. All the lowdown here. Or on our regularly updated corona rules page right below this sentence.
In case you missed it...
Since we've talked about them so much (too much) in this episode of Corona in 60 seconds, a gentle reminder that the AfD (🤮) is now just the third-largest party in the former East Germany – they used to be No. 1. More in-depth reporting here.
That's all for now folks. Stay healthy!
Yours,
The Berliner Zeitung English team
P.S. We're on Twitter.