As of November 22nd, clubs in the German state of Bavaria must remain closed for three weeks. The closure is part of a short-term, partial lockdown of the region due to increasing COVID-19 cases.

The order affects all of Bavarian nightlife beyond clubs and applies to bars as well. Germany continues to have lower than average vaccination rates than the rest of Western Europe, with Bavaria and its neighbor Saxony hit the hardest. As of November 23rd, there have been 15,609 new cases recorded in the region. Overall, 70.6% of German citizens have received at least one dose, while 68% are fully vaccinated.

Luca, an app used for contact tracing, issued a press release claiming that 49% of COVID-19 alerts in October were traced back to nightclubs. This in turn has shifted the conversation around COVID-19 infections towards blaming nightlife.

Berlin’s Clubcommission, an association dedicating to protecting the interest of Berlin club culture, issued a statement in response. “Club visitors are notified if a person present on the evening of their visit has tested positive for Corona afterwards,” it reads. “Even though we as operators are concerned about the coming months, we can say that we take hygiene rules and contact tracing very seriously.”