GERMAN STATE PREMIERS DEFEND LOCKDOWN EASING

A number of German state premiers on Monday defended their plans to ease coronavirus lockdown restrictions after Chancellor Angela Merkel criticized their decisions and said the federal government may have to override them.

Armin Laschet, the head of the conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) and the leader of North Rhine Westphalia, Schleswig-Holstein premier Daniel Guenther and Saarland premier Tobias Hans were among those to defend regional easing, Simon Sachseder reported for Deutsche Presse Agentur (dpa).

"Everyone wants the number of infections to go down, and everyone has taken appropriate measures for their state," Laschet said on Monday after a meeting of the CDU leadership.

"We will continue to pursue this strategy," said Hans, adding that Saarland's "cautious" approach would "ensure that activities that are currently taking place illicitly indoors are brought outside."

Laschet and Hans, who have both said that a massive ramping up of rapid antigen tests would go hand-in-hand with the easing of certain restrictions in their states, said that their strategies would help to trace coronavirus cases and therefore curb a third wave of infections.

Germany is waiting to see if Merkel will follow through after she rejected some state leaders' efforts to ease a lockdown designed to contain a severe third wave of infections driven mainly by the British variant.

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