ER
THE world’s biggest folk festival held in Germany, Oktoberfest, will not take place this year due to the corona virus pandemic (COVID-19), the Bavarian state authority said,
According to the Bavarian leader, Markus Soeder said we realized that the risks were indeed too great. Of course it hurts, it’s also embarrassing. This year’s Oktoberfest was originally scheduled for September 19 to October 4.
Oktoberfest can collect up to six million visitors each year in a two-week event in Munich, which generates revenues of more than one billion euros (equivalent to almost IDR17 trillion) for the city.
Initially, Oktoberfest was held as a celebration of joy over the marriage of the Crown Prince of Bavaria, Prince Ludwig, in 1820. The mat lasted for six days, ended with a horse race, and from then on the celebration has continued to be repeated until now.
Today, the festival is filled with crowds of visitors in tents while drinking beer and eating typical snacks such as sausages and pretzels, and listening to music.
The mayor of Munich expressed his apologies for the disappointment that had to be felt by two million people from all over the world who were scheduled to fly to Germany to attend the Oktoberfest, and in particular by the residents of Bavaria as hosts.
A number of areas in Germany have begun to relax the social restrictions that were put in place last month to curb the spread of the corona virus, but major events are still banned until August 31.
While Chancellor Angela Merkel called on the German public to remain disciplined with the appeal in order to avoid repeating outbreaks again after there was progress on the number of cases of infection in the country.
Data from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases shows that there are an additional 1,785 corona cases, so the total in Germany has so far touched 143 thousand more. While 4,598 COVID-19 patients died. [antaranews/photo special]
