Germany experiences 650 new coronavirus instances in a meat processing plant

Toennies, the enterprise that owns the meat processing facility in Guetersloh, halfway involving Dortmund and Hanover, temporarily shut the plant down on Wednesday afternoon.

Gereon Schulze Althoff, the director of high quality administration and veterinary expert services at the firm, reported the plant experienced a number of international staff who have traveled in latest weeks and could possibly have been carrying the virus with them. He stated the personnel and their welfare are the precedence for the enterprise.

Nevertheless, he admitted that retaining social distancing was not quick at the facility. “Our vegetation have not been created for a pandemic,” Schulze Althoff mentioned at a news conference on Wednesday.

The area governing administration in Guetersloh closed all daycare facilities and universities setting up Thursday, but did not impose a basic lockdown. “The district of Guetersloh plainly exceeded the vital mark of 50 new infections per 100,000 inhabitants in 7 days,” the city’s crisis group claimed in a statement.

A federal arrangement involving the German states says that if the charge of new bacterial infections surpasses 50 for every 100,000 folks in seven days, authorities need to think about imposing steps to consist of the outbreak.

German chancellor Angela Merkel declared Wednesday that a ban on big situations in the country will be extended until eventually at the very least the conclude of October.

Talking right after a assembly in Berlin with the premiers of Germany’s 16 states, Merkel urged warning as the state moved to further easing of coronavirus limitations. Merkel said that physical distancing policies will keep on being in location across Germany.

CNN’s Stephanie Halasz, Nadine Schmidt and Simon Cullen contributed reporting.