Foreign Desk Report
BERLIN: Germany on Thursday reported 16,774 new COVID-19 infections, the highest daily increase since the pandemic hit the country, according to Germany’s disease control agency the Robert Koch Institute (RKI).
The new cases have brought the country’s total caseload to 481,013, the RKI said, adding that 89 patients have died from the virus during the same period, taking the country’s death toll to 10,272. Thursday’s figure has broken the record daily jump registered only the previous day, when 14,964 new cases were reported Wednesday.
As COVID-19 cases are surging in Germany, the country on Wednesday announced a partial lockdown starting from Nov. 2. Under the new lockdown, entertainment and leisure facilities will be largely prohibited, with bars, restaurants, theaters, opera houses and concert venues having to close until the end of November.
German Health Minister Jens Spahn told national public broadcaster on Wednesday that it is time to break the COVID-19 wave now. “When the intensive care units are full, it will be too late,” he said. Tougher measures which Germany would implement in the fight against the spread of COVID-19 were “suitable, necessary and proportionate,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in her speech in the Bundestag, the lower house of the German parliament, on Thursday.
