waiting to hear what chancellor merkel will say about scaling back the lockdown here converse trix institute to expire on sunday and there are growing calls for the country to be gradually reopened. germany has a grave decision to make keep restrictions in place like france or like austria start the country down the path towards normal life the consequences could be enormous either way easing restrictions could put people's physical health at risk but there are also wrists to keeping them in place the current restrictions are warranted but they have a very high cost not just an economic cost but also a social and psychological cost we need to think about how we can transition responsibly step by step into some sort of really normalize ation and i think we need to do that quite soon germany's public health institute the r.k. i is not against relaxation but wary of how it happens as of tuesday morning the r k i s latest figures for germany where 125098 total cases that's an increase of 2082 from the previous day total deaths are now at $2969.00 overall new cases have slowed that's the good new