Germany reported a record number of new coronavirus cases on Wednesday – as one of the country’s top virologists warned another lockdown would be needed if vaccinations do not quickly accelerate.
The 39,676 cases registered by the Robert Koch Institute surpassed the previous daily record of 37,120 new cases reported Friday.
The country’s national disease control centre said Germany’s infection rate rose to 232.1 new cases per 100,000 residents over the past seven days.
Christian Drosten, the head of virology at Berlin’s Charite Hospital, said of the situation at many hospital intensive care units across the country: “We have a real emergency situation right now, we have to do something right now.”
Government officials have repeatedly said they do not intend to impose lockdowns and have instead appealed to people to get vaccinated.
The parties that are expected to form the next government plan to introduce legislation this week that would allow a declaration since March 2020 of an “epidemic situation of national scope” to expire at the end of the month and provide a new legal framework for instituting coronavirus measures.
As during other periods of the pandemic, the country has a patchwork of regional rules.
Most places restrict access to many indoor facilities and events to people who have been vaccinated against the virus, have recovered from Covid-19 or recently received negative test results – with the latter category now excluded in some areas. However, the rules are often laxly enforced.
Several hospitals have said in recent days that they are again working at their limits and have intensive care units so full of Covid patients that they cannot admit new patients at the moment.
The Charite hospital said on Tuesday it had to cancel planned surgeries due to the number of staff members caring for people with Covid. Authorities have said most of the latest patients are unvaccinated.
About 67 per cent of Germany’s population of 83 million is fully vaccinated, according to official figures. The government has not made vaccines mandatory for any professional group.
Mr Drosten said he expects “a very strenuous winter” if vaccinations do not pick up quickly.
“We probably need to control infection activity again through contact measures – not probably, but certainly,” he said.
“We’re in a bad situation, we have 15 million people who could have been vaccinated and should have been vaccinated,” Mr Drosten said.
Since the start of the pandemic, 96,963 people have died with Covid-19 in Germany, according to official figures.
While Germany’s Covid infection rate has been skyrocketing in recent days, it remains below the UK’s, which on Wednesday stood at 379.4 cases per 100,000 population. However it has been steadily falling since towards the end of October. On Tuesday the UK recorded 33,117 new Covid infections and 262 more deaths.
Around 68 per cent of the UK population is fully vaccinated against the disease.
Surjitt Sahani
