
WEB DESK
With rising cases of Corona in the country, German Health Minister Jens Spahn has said that health system in Germany could be pushed to its limits in April. Meanwhile, the head of the public health body warned that cases could reach 100,000 per day.
Speaking at a joint press conference with Health Minister Spahn, Wieler appealed for people to reduce their social contacts over the Easter holidays.
Although 10% of the German population has now received a first dose of the vaccine, the gains from vaccinations are being eaten away by the high infection rate, he said.
Spahn also cautioned that the current trajectory of infections could overwhelm Germany’s hospitals in the next few weeks.
“At the moment, the figures are rising too fast and the variants are making the situation especially dangerous,” he said. “If this continues unchecked, we run the risk of our health system could reach its breaking point in April.”
German health officials warned on Friday that the current increase in coronavirus cases is likely going to be “harder to curb” than the previous two, in large part because of the more virulent and more easily transmitted B117 variant.
The comments from Lothar Wieler, the head of Germany’s Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases (RKI), and Health Minister Jens Spahn come at the end of a turbulent week, as officials scramble to slow infection numbers.