New confirmed Covid-19 cases in Germany must drop to ‘few hundred a day’ before easing lockdown – senior health official 

24 Apr, 2020 10:22 / Updated 5 years ago

The coronavirus is still spreading too rapidly to consider lifting quarantine measures in Germany, the deputy chief of the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) has warned. Chancellor Merkel earlier compared the pandemic to WWII.

Health officials have reported 2,337 new cases of Covid-19 across Germany, which is still a significant increase per day, RKI’s Vice President Lars Schaade told reporters on Friday.

“It is necessary for the number of cases to fall to a few hundred a day, so we could consider easing the lockdown,” Schaade said. He added that it will take “at least two weeks” to see whether this step will have a positive or negative effect on the infection rate.

As of Friday, Germany has 150,383 confirmed cases of Covid-19, with 5,321 deaths, according to the RKI.

On Thursday, Chancellor Merkel called the coronavirus pandemic the biggest challenge to the “life and health of our people” since WWII. She also said the country is “not living in the final phase of the pandemic, but still at the beginning.”

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