Move FM Global News

BERLIN, Germany – Another fast-developing hot-spot for the globally circulating coronavirus Covid-19 is Germany, where the number of cases in the past 24 hours has jumped 25%.

The number of new cases hit 13,957 on Friday, an increase of 2,958.

The country has had 31 deaths, around a third of which (11) were reported in the past 24 hours.

All sixteen federal states in Germany have now reported cases.

”We will see more fatalities over the next few weeks, including here in Germany,” Lothar Wieler, who heads the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), Germany’s federal public health agency, said Friday.

“More people will get infected. More people will be admitted to the emergency room and more people will require respiratory aid and therefore we have to fear that there will not be enough ventilator places,” he said.

“If there are still people in our country who don’t believe this, who don’t believe me, who think that this is panic-making, then I can only call upon them to finally open their eyes to this reality,” Wieler added.

Four days ago Germany closed its borders with Austria, Denmark, France, Luxembourg and Switzerland.

“Since German unification, no, not since the Second World War, no challenge to our nation has ever demanded such a degree of common and united action,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Thursday.