Germany set to ban New Year’s Eve fireworks to protect hospitals

Germans are being told to brace themselves for a ban on fireworks in their traditional new year celebrations, the only time of the year when private individuals are legally allowed to buy them.

Political leaders are expected to announce on Wednesday that the sale of fireworks, which are usually sold in the three days before New Year’s Eve – before millions are let off across the country during the festivities – is to be banned for the first time over fears of overwhelming hospitals battling the coronavirus pandemic.

About €200m (£178m) is usually spent on pyrotechnics, which are detonated everywhere from private balconies to public parks between 6pm on 31 December until 7am on 1 January, but the tradition also leads to a large number of injuries and a significant number of people needing surgery.

With hospitals already stretched due to the high number of coronavirus cases, including an increasing number of patients needing intensive care, lawmakers and doctors have said it would not be responsible to simply allow the normal celebrations to go ahead.

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The news has been welcomed by anti-firework campaigners, who say as well as being a threat to public health, the fireworks cause considerable fine particle air pollution, are a threat to animals’ welfare, and create a large amount of refuse.

The firework ban comes on top of a halt this year to Germany’s popular Christmas markets, which normally lure hundreds of thousands of tourists from November onwards.

It is part of wide-ranging plans expected to be officially agreed upon on Wednesday at a “Corona summit” between the 16 leaders of Germany’s länder (regions), and the federal chancellor, Angela Merkel, which is likely to extend the current “lockdown lite”, which was initially only expected to last until the end of November.

It is understood that the extension would keep the restrictions in place until 20 December, allowing a short relaxation of rules over the Christmas period, before they are tightened up once more until around mid-January.

Berlin’s mayor, Michael Müller, who is the current head of the conference of state leaders, (MPK) presented its draft decision on Sunday and said: “We are in agreement that a lot has been achieved, but not yet enough.” The leaders agreed that while a growth in the number of cases appears to have been halted since tighter measures were introduced on 2 November, they still remain too high.

The decision will be a blow to restaurants, bars, theatres, cinemas and beauty salons, which had hoped they could open again in December. Shops and hairdressers have been allowed to stay open.

Contacts are expected to be restricted from 1 December until 17 January to the members of two households, up to five people, although children under 14 would not count as part of the five.

Between 21 and 27 December, hotels should be allowed to reopen so that people visiting families have an option to stay overnight elsewhere. It has been suggested that up to 10 people, not counting the under-14s, should be allowed to meet.

Employers are expected to be requested to close where possible, between 21 December and 3 January to allow for as many people as possible to follow the government recommendation to stay at home.

Jens Spahn, the health minister, said on Monday he expected that it would be possible to start vaccinating people in Germany against coronavirus as early as December.

The government has said its goal is to push the seven-day incidence of coronavirus cases to below 50 per 100,000, or around 5,900 cases. Incidence is currently around 143. On Friday 23,648 new cases were registered. Over 21,200 intensive care beds are currently occupied, with just over 12,000 in reserve.