Germany ‘at crossroads’ as Covid cases surge across Europe

Urgent measures needed to avoid chaos', warns expert, as Spain, Portugal and Netherlands tighten rules

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Germany's top health officials have raised the prospect of a national lockdown, warning that a rapidly rising number of coronavirus cases and a dramatic increase in the number of patients in intensive care meant contact reduction was the only way of tackling the crisis and avoiding the road to chaos".

We need a massive contact reduction immediately," said Prof Lothar Wieler, the head of the Robert Koch Institute, Germany's federal disease control agency.