Poll: most Germans back mandatory vaccines; Christmas worries grow

Almost two-thirds of people in Germany would back a mandate for coronavirus vaccines - a proposal set to come before German lawmakers soon - according to a poll released on Sunday.
The results showed 63 per cent of respondents backing required immunization for German residents against the virus that causes Covid-19. Beyond that, 30 per cent were opposed and 7 per cent gave no response.
The survey was conducted by YouGov for dpa and involved 2,067 people interviewed between Wednesday and Friday.
About a year ago, after the first vaccinations were received in Germany in late December 2020, about 56 per cent backed a vaccine mandate and 33 per cent were against.
Incoming chancellor Olaf Scholz has said he intends to bring vaccine mandate legislation before the Bundestag in February or March.
The results come as the country's infectious diseases agency, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), reported a slight drop in the number of cases. It recorded 42,055 new cases, for a seven-day incidence per 100,000 people of 439.2.
A week ago, those figures were 44,401 and 446.7.
But the RKI cautioned that many cases are probably going unreported, due to a surge of hospitalizations that is leaving health care staff with little time to track and record all cases.
In light of case counts, Volker Wissing, who is expected to take over as transportation secretary next week with the new German government, cautioned Germans to skip Christmas-time trips to visit relatives.
"Winter 2021 is going to be more dramatic than the winter of 2020. We can't stop taking corona seriously," he told the Bild am Sonntag newspaper as he urged Germans to minimize their number of contacts to the absolute minimum.
Highlighting the danger, Poland and Switzerland were added to Germany's list of high-risk coronavirus regions on Sunday, joining about 60 other countries. People who return to Germany from such regions and are neither vaccinated nor recovered from a coronavirus infection face 10 days of quarantine.