He had seen the situation for himself on Shopping Sunday on Tauentzien on 6 December. "It doesn't work like that. There is a lot going on, there is a dense crowd on the streets," Müller described his impressions. And if you consider that on 20 December people were still streaming into the city from Brandenburg and that shortly before the festive season the "typical Christmas fever" was breaking out, "then situations arise in the retail trade and on the shopping streets that we cannot accept."

Müller continued: "It is not possible in a global crisis in which people are dying that we say that this Advent Sunday is more important to us." He maintains: "The health of Berliners is more important to me than a shopping experience.