Scholz to Germans: Let’s all help to defeat COVID in 2022

By GEIR MOULSON
Associated Press

BERLIN (AP) — Chancellor Olaf Scholz is urging Germans to pull together to defeat the coronavirus in 2022 and promising to react “quickly and decisively” to the advance of the omicron variant. In his first televised New Year message since taking over from longtime leader Angela Merkel three weeks ago, Scholz also pledged to use Germany’s presidency of the Group of Seven industrial nations to make the G-7 a “trailblazer” in climate-neutral economic activity. Much of Scholz’s message was taken up with the immediate challenge of fighting COVID-19. The highly transmissible omicron variant is causing steep rises in case numbers in Europe and making inroads in Germany, though official figures have yet to reflect that fully.