German Chancellor Olaf Scholz expressed optimism on Sunday that the country would require less severe Covid-19 measures this year to tackle the expected rise in cases during the autumn and winter months. His comments came as the country grapples with a summer wave of infections caused by new highly infections variants. “There should be no more school closures and I don’t think we’ll need the kind of lockdown that we’ve had in the last years,” Scholz told the public ARD broadcaster. He spoke of a “completely changed situation,” now that basic vaccination rates stood at 76% in Germany. However, …