(Bloomberg) -- German Chancellor-in-waiting Olaf Scholz called for a renewed vaccination effort as Europe’s biggest economy struggles with record numbers of new Covid-19 cases.

Scholz, who aims to succeed Chancellor Angela Merkel early next month, said Germany needs to be “winter-proofed” against the disease, and it will be mostly up to state governments to decide which measures and restrictions are needed in their region.

“Many fewer vaccinated people are affected by the infection than those who haven’t been inoculated,” Scholz said Thursday in a speech to the lower house of parliament. Getting a Covid-19 shot is “the best solution for everyone,” he added, in his first public comments on the pandemic for several weeks.

Germany’s efforts at keeping the coronavirus under control have been complicated by a lackluster vaccination campaign, with millions of adults not yet inoculated. The pending change of government after 16 years under Merkel -- who has pushed for tighter restrictions -- has also impinged on pandemic management.

Scholz said state leaders will meet with Merkel and federal officials to discuss the situation next week, ceding ground on an urgent call made by the outgoing chancellor.

Bundestag lawmakers are holding a first debate on updated legislation to tackle Covid-19 drawn up by Scholz’s Social Democrats, the Greens and the Free Democrats -- the three parties in talks to form the next ruling coalition. 

The law, which is due for final approval next week, is designed to provide a nationwide framework while giving regions room to tighten restrictions in coronavirus hotspots. It effectively rules out sweeping lockdown measures like school closures and curfews.

“We want to provide the regions with a targeted set of instruments,” Dirk Wiese, a deputy SPD caucus leader, said Thursday in an interview with ARD television. “This gives them the powers to tackle these high coronavirus numbers.”

Scholz spoke a few hours after data showed the number of new cases in Germany jumped by more than 50,000 in a single day for the first time. The southern state of Bavaria has declared the latest wave of the pandemic a “disaster situation.”

Cases surged by a record 50,196 nationwide and the seven-day incidence rate per 100,000 people climbed to 249.1, according to the latest figures from the RKI public-health institute updated early Thursday. Deaths from the disease rose by 235 to a total of 97,198.

“In many hospitals there is already no, or only very little, capacity available,” Bavaria Premier Markus Soeder said Wednesday in a tweet. Declaring a disaster makes it easier to distribute patients around the region’s hospitals, he added.

Bavaria has the third-highest incidence rate after Saxony and Thuringia and the three regions also have some of the nation’s lowest vaccination rates.

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