CDU's Laschet on German vaccination programme

The governor of Germany's North Rhine-Westphalia said Monday bureaucracy is slowing down state vaccinations and suggested a "move away from micromanagement."

Armin Laschet's comments echoed German Chancellor Angela Merkel's televised interview on Sunday, where she blamed her country’s difficulties during the coronavirus pandemic on “a tendency toward perfectionism.”

Speaking to journalists at the CDU party headquarters in Berlin, Laschet also said that the next meeting of the heads of the federal German states with Merkel should be done in person, so not "every word is being leaked" while still being negotiated.

Germany's disease control agency on Monday reported 9,872 newly confirmed cases in the past day, and 43 deaths.

Since the start of the outbreak, the country of 83 million has recorded almost 2.8 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 75,913 deaths.