BERLIN, March 19 (Xinhua) -- Minister President of the German federal state of Bavaria Markus Soeder said Thursday that the state would introduce further restrictive measures to slow the spread of COVID-19 should the imposed measures fail to "show results quickly."
"If many people do not voluntarily restrict themselves, then in the end the only instrument left to react to this is the Bavaria-wide curfew," Soeder said in a government statement in the state parliament in Munich.
On Wednesday, Mitterteich, a town with a population of 7,000 in southern Bavaria, became the first German town to impose a curfew, which will last until April 2 and has been extended to two more districts in the state.
The Bavarian district administration authority in Mitterteich now prohibits leaving home without good reason. Police are stopping traffic passing through Mitterteich and controling the inner-city area for which the curfew has been imposed.
"Since the coronavirus has been detected conspicuously in the Mitterteich urban area, we must assume that there is a hotspot," said Bavaria's Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann, adding the curfew would "help to contain the spread of the virus and break the chain of infection."
"We cannot watch endlessly," stressed Soeder. "If there is no appropriate support, then we have to act."
