Two-thirds, or 67 per cent, of German citizens agree with an appeal to this effect by intensive care physicians in view of rising infection numbers, according to a survey by pollsters infratest dimap for the Deutschlandtrend review of German attitudes released by public broadcaster ARD.

The physicians are calling for a shutdown of all social life in Germany for two to three weeks to prevent hospitals from being overburdened.

The current measures do not go far enough for about half of the respondents, or 48 per cent. This is 16 percentage points more than in mid-March.

A good quarter of the respondents said that the current measures were sufficient or too strict, both at 24 per cent.

A large majority gives the federal and state governments a poor report card for crisis management. About four-fifths, or 79 per cent, are much more critical of their work than they were at the beginning of February, when the figure was 56 per cent.

Only 19 per cent see the government’s course in the crisis as positive. This is particularly evident in the verdict on the sluggish vaccination strategy: 83 per cent of those surveyed are currently less or not at all satisfied with the progress of the vaccination campaign against the coronavirus.

Infratest dimap polled 1,348 eligible voters in Germany on March 29 and 30 by randomized telephone and online survey.