Germany needs tougher lockdown to break 3rd COVID-19 wave

Germany needs a tougher lockdown "to break the current wave" before contact and mobility restrictions could be relaxed again, said Minister of Health Jens Spahn during a press conference on Friday, reported Xinhua.

The third COVID-19 wave in the country could no longer be prevented, said Lothar Wieler, President of the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), during the press conference, adding that "my hope is that we can at least flatten it out to mitigate the consequences."

"We are in the third wave, triggered by variant B.1.1.7," said Wieler, stressing that the variant was more contagious, more dangerous, and thus more difficult to contain.

Despite the ongoing lockdown and the country's vaccination campaign, new COVID-19 infections in Germany rose sharply again as the country registered 25,464 new COVID-19 infections within one day on Friday, around 3,500 more than on the same day last week, according to the RKI.

Wieler stressed that the development in the country's hospitals was worrying as "intensive care units are filling up rapidly." According to the data of the DIVI intensive care register, the number of people in intensive care units in Germany increased by 20 percent within one week.

Germany increased its daily COVID-19 vaccinations to more than 719,900 doses on Thursday, according to the RKI. Since Tuesday, vaccine shots are also available at general practitioners throughout the country.

More than three months after the start of the vaccination campaign in Germany, over 4.8 million people in Germany were fully vaccinated as of Thursday, bringing the country's vaccination rate to 5.8 percent, according to the RKI.

To date, more than 2.95 million COVID-19 infections have been officially registered in Germany since the outbreak of the pandemic. The death toll climbed to 78,003 on Friday, according to the RKI.