Berlin-Every weekday at 11am come to the Berliner Zeitung English Edition for the corona/Covid-19 news at a glance.
🚥 The latest corona stats for Berlin (tallied Monday, 30 November)
New cases in one day: 925 (332 Sunday)
Total number of corona deaths: 565 (+12 over Sunday)
🟢 R number: 0.80 (0.92 Sunday)
🔴 New infections per week: 206,9 / 100,000 inhabitants (202 Sunday)
🔴 Share of Berlin ICUs occupied by Covid-19 patients: 25.2 per cent (24.2 per cent Sunday)
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Source: Berlin's coronavirus status page
The lowdown...
Half-naked sex parties? No. Corona tests? Yes.
Kitkat Club, the spot synonymous with the city's nightlife, will reopen Friday, 4 December, to offer rapid Covid-19 antigen tests with results within 30 minutes. Partiers (and anyone else) can get a test from trained medical personnel for €24.90. Testing will be available Wednesday to Sunday from 10am to 7pm. The club hints it's practising for what nightlife will look like in the near future. At least you'll have something to do in line rather than just Tiktok. Register at: www.check4event.de/register. They'll check your QR code at the door. More info: www.facebook.com/KKClubORIGINAL.
Need a job?
Albrecht Broemme, the head of Berlin's vaccination project, is looking for 1,200 employees for the city's six corona vaccination centres. The former Berlin fire department manager needs 90 trained doctors but also nurses, caregivers and administrative personnel. The 67-year-old has also seemingly taken a page from the Wal-Mart training manual and is looking for greeters: "There are currently talks with Easyjet and Lufthansa to possibly secure stewardesses for use in the vaccination centers," he said. Berlin politicians expect 400,000 Berlin residents to initially volunteer for inoculations at the sites: Arena in Treptow, Erika Hess ice rink in Wedding, Velodrom in Prenzlauer Berg, Convention Hall 11 at the Messe in Charlottenburg, a hangar at Tempelhof and the former Terminal C at Tegel.
Deduct your kitchen table
The country's governing coalition wants to give employees a €5 tax deduction for every day they were forced to work from home during the pandemic, according to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Because this is Germany, the execution might be a bit complicated but the politicians are working on it. The country's aged tax code currently only allows deductions for home office expenses if there is a separate, dedicated office with a lockable door and other work-from-home only if they exceed €1,000.
The next lockdown is already looming
Tighter corona rules go into effect today (see here or below) as part of the law that extended this latest lockdown to 20 December. Experts are already warning of yet another lockdown following Christmas and New Years thanks to holiday travel and cheer. The current lockdown hasn't halted the disease, they say, just its exponential spread. But at least vaccinations should be picking up speed by then. The city's traffic light warning system highlights the spread of the disease: The light for intensive care unit use by Covid-19 patients was red again Tuesday. This is the first week ever that the light has turned red, indicating over 25 per cent usage.
In case you missed it...
Looking for a respite from all the doom and gloom? To celebrate 30 years of reunification in October (which feels like a year ago), we took a look at 30 words related to East Germany, the Cold War and reunification itself. Maybe you'd like to take a look?
That's all for now, folks. Stay safe!
Yours,
The Berliner Zeitung English team
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