Berlin: Thousands protested in Germany on Saturday against COVID-19 restrictions as cases worldwide neared 25 million.
The country has been praised for minimizing the pandemic’s health toll, but many protesters have lost jobs and are angry and afraid they would not survive a second lockdown.
The protesters said government measures such as requiring masks to restrict the spread of the coronavirus violated their constitutional rights.
Germany has had 242,201 cases of COVID-19 and 9,297 deaths since the pandemic began, according to Johns Hopkins University global tracker.
Chancellor Angela Merkel said Friday that she believed colder weather would drive people back indoors, making the pandemic worse.
Worldwide, COVID-19 has infected over 24.7 million people and killed over 800,000. The United States has the most cases at over 5.9 million and the most deaths at over 181,000. Brazil has the second-highest number of cases at over 3.8 million and second-highest number of deaths at over 119,000.
The World Health Organization and individual nations have previously praised South Korea for largely managing to bring the virus under control with extensive testing and contact tracing during a monthlong streak of daily cases below 100. But now the government has strengthened regulations to curb spiking cases.
