A senior ally of Angela Merkel has claimed that Germany is already experiencing a second wave of coronavirus as new clusters of infections are detected every day.
Politician Michael Kretschmer, premier of the eastern German state of Saxony, gave the warning after daily infections rose to 800 on Friday and Saturday.
The country’s R rate, which measures the number of infections caused by an individual, also rose above 1 to 1.08 on Saturday, up from 0.93 on Thursday.
Kretschmer – a member of Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats – told the Rheinische Post newspaper: ‘The second wave of coronavirus is already here.
‘It is already taking place every day. We have new clusters of infections every day which could become very high numbers.’
Visit our live blog for the latest updates: Coronavirus news live
Yesterday the number of new cases in the country fell to 300 – but weekend figures are often lower than those during the week due to delays in reporting.
Health authorities have said the new cases have been caused by large celebrations or gatherings as well as returning travellers.
Last week officials in the country decided to set up testing stations at airports to encourage people arriving from a long list of countries deemed high-risk to get tested.
They will also allow people to get tested elsewhere for free within three days of arrival in Germany.
In southern Germany, authorities have put almost 500 people into quarantine at a farm after dozens of workers tested positive.
Security staff are stationed at the property to make sure no one leaves.
At least 174 harvest workers at the farm in Bavaria’s Dingolfing-Landau region were infected with all 480 employees and managers told they cannot leave.
Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at [email protected].
For more stories like this, check our news page.
Source: Read Full Article