Today in Germany: A round-up of the latest news on Friday
From increased Kindergeld to a threat to the German pharmaceutical industry, here's a roundup of the latest news on Friday.
Hotels and the holidays
More states have decided to allow guests to stay at hotels for family visits over the festive season - currently just stays for business purposes are allowed. The complete list now includes: Berlin, Schleswig-Holstein, North Rhine-Westphalia, and Lower Saxony.
The relaxation of rules, however, is only set to apply over the Christmas holidays - or around December 20th to January 3rd.
But maybe the extra hotel space won’t be needed: according to a new survey, 73 percent of people in Germany plan to limit their contact to family, including family visits, over the holidays.
More Kindergeld in 2021
Parents in Germany can look forward to receiving a higher monthly allowance for their children. Starting next year ‘Kindergeld’ will be raised by €15, Germany’s Bundesrat decided on Friday.
READ ALSO: Kindergeld: What you need to know about Germany's child support payments
Starting in January, money for the first and second child will be €219 instead of €204. For the third child, that amount rises from €210 to €225, and up from the fourth child the amount rises from €235 to €250.
Photo of the day
Photo: DPA
We can see how ‘Spiegelsee’ (Mirror Lake) in Sehlendorf, Schleswig-Holstein got its name. Two women walked along the lake on Friday, getting some outdoor exercise as temperatures around Germany remained at a mild 7C.
Packages booming
Just five weeks before the end of the year, Deutsche Post DHL delivered more parcels than in the whole of the previous year. The Bonn-based company announced that 1.6 billion parcels have been transported in Germany so far in 2020.
This means that the company's own record has already been surpassed - in 2019 the postal service had transported 1.59 billion parcels in this country, more than ever before. Because of the booming online trade, the company has been breaking its own record year after year for a long time, but now this is happening exceptionally early.
By the end of the year, the Group expects to have transported around 1.8 billion parcels, an increase of around 15 percent. Never before has growth been so high.
Threat of German anti-vaxxers
On Thursday, the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) warned of a possible threat to the German pharmaceutical industry, especially as Germany gears up for 60 vaccination centres.
READ ALSO: Former Berlin Tegel gets new life as Covid-19 vaccination centre
Due to the "high dynamics and emotion inherent in the complex coronavirus topic", an "abstract danger" for vaccine manufacturers, but also for vaccination centres as well as transport and storage facilities must be assumed, according to an internal paper viewed by the Süddeutsche Zeitung, as well as public broadcasters NDR and WDR.
In particular, the BKA warns that critics of coronavirus measures could try to infiltrate the vaccination centres in order to get particularly high media attention for their protest.
There’s a concrete reason for this concern: a demonstration in front of BionTech’s headquarters, the research company in Mainz that has developed a promising coronavirus vaccine according to current research, was announced for this Saturday.
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Hotels and the holidays
More states have decided to allow guests to stay at hotels for family visits over the festive season - currently just stays for business purposes are allowed. The complete list now includes: Berlin, Schleswig-Holstein, North Rhine-Westphalia, and Lower Saxony.
The relaxation of rules, however, is only set to apply over the Christmas holidays - or around December 20th to January 3rd.
But maybe the extra hotel space won’t be needed: according to a new survey, 73 percent of people in Germany plan to limit their contact to family, including family visits, over the holidays.
More Kindergeld in 2021
Parents in Germany can look forward to receiving a higher monthly allowance for their children. Starting next year ‘Kindergeld’ will be raised by €15, Germany’s Bundesrat decided on Friday.
READ ALSO: Kindergeld: What you need to know about Germany's child support payments
Starting in January, money for the first and second child will be €219 instead of €204. For the third child, that amount rises from €210 to €225, and up from the fourth child the amount rises from €235 to €250.
Photo of the day
Photo: DPA
We can see how ‘Spiegelsee’ (Mirror Lake) in Sehlendorf, Schleswig-Holstein got its name. Two women walked along the lake on Friday, getting some outdoor exercise as temperatures around Germany remained at a mild 7C.
Packages booming
Just five weeks before the end of the year, Deutsche Post DHL delivered more parcels than in the whole of the previous year. The Bonn-based company announced that 1.6 billion parcels have been transported in Germany so far in 2020.
This means that the company's own record has already been surpassed - in 2019 the postal service had transported 1.59 billion parcels in this country, more than ever before. Because of the booming online trade, the company has been breaking its own record year after year for a long time, but now this is happening exceptionally early.
By the end of the year, the Group expects to have transported around 1.8 billion parcels, an increase of around 15 percent. Never before has growth been so high.
Threat of German anti-vaxxers
On Thursday, the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) warned of a possible threat to the German pharmaceutical industry, especially as Germany gears up for 60 vaccination centres.
READ ALSO: Former Berlin Tegel gets new life as Covid-19 vaccination centre
Due to the "high dynamics and emotion inherent in the complex coronavirus topic", an "abstract danger" for vaccine manufacturers, but also for vaccination centres as well as transport and storage facilities must be assumed, according to an internal paper viewed by the Süddeutsche Zeitung, as well as public broadcasters NDR and WDR.
In particular, the BKA warns that critics of coronavirus measures could try to infiltrate the vaccination centres in order to get particularly high media attention for their protest.
There’s a concrete reason for this concern: a demonstration in front of BionTech’s headquarters, the research company in Mainz that has developed a promising coronavirus vaccine according to current research, was announced for this Saturday.
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