BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany’s third wave of coronaviruses could be the worst so far and 100,000 new infections a day are out of the question, the head of the Robert Koch Institute of Infectious Diseases (RKI) said on Friday.
The number of new confirmed infections in Germany has risen in recent weeks, driven by a more transmissible variant known as B117 and moving to facilitate some blockade measures.
“There are clear signs that this wave will be worse than the first two,” Lothar Wieler of RKI said as he urged people to stay home during Easter. “We have very difficult weeks ahead.”
The RKI later issued COVID-19 travel warnings for several neighboring countries, including France, Austria, Denmark and the Czech Republic.
People arriving from these countries must now submit a negative test of less than 48 hours at the German border. Then they have to go to a forty to ten day, which can be shortened by a second negative test after 5 days.
Health Minister Jens Spahn said Germany was in the final stages of the “pandemic marathon”, but the country’s health system could reach its limit in April.
The number of new confirmed cases in Germany rose Friday to 21,573, while the death toll rose to 183.
Spahn said a requirement for all airline passengers entering Germany to provide negative evidence would come into force on Monday at midnight.
He called on local authorities to take a more flexible approach to vaccination, for example by offering unused doses to anyone over the age of 70 over the weekend and reducing stocks more quickly.
Frustration has grown with the slow deployment of the vaccine. About 10% of Germans have received at least a first dose, but it is much lower than in the United States, Britain or Israel.
Reports by Caroline Copley; Edited by Maria Sheahan and Giles Elgood