Covid Germany: Fears third wave could be worst yet with 100k daily infections

Germany warns its coronavirus third wave could be the worst yet with 100,000 daily infections

  • Health official Lothar Wieler warned ‘this wave will be worse than the first two’ 
  • German health minister Jens Spahn warned hospitals could reach limit in April
  • Angela Merkel this week had to scrap plans for an ultra-strict lockdown at Easter 

Germany‘s third wave of coronavirus could be the worst yet and daily infections could even reach 100,000 a day, the country’s top diseases official warned today. 

Lothar Wieler said there were ‘clear signals that this wave will be worse than the first two waves’ which have already caused more than 75,000 deaths. 

Angela Merkel‘s health minister Jens Spahn said the health system could reach its limit in April with intensive care units already filling up again as infections mount.

Wieler urged people to stay at home over Easter but plans for a near-total shutdown next week were scrapped on Wednesday in an embarrassing climbdown by Merkel.  

Germany’s infection rate is climbing rapidly again in a resurgence blamed partly on the British variant of the disease, with the daily average reaching 15,000 cases today 

Deaths are lower than at the winter peak but would be likely to climb again if cases reached a record 100,000 per day, a figure never seen in Europe

Deaths are lower than at the winter peak but would be likely to climb again if cases reached a record 100,000 per day, a figure never seen in Europe 

Wieler, the head of Germany’s Robert Koch diseases institute (RKI), warned at a press conference on Friday that ‘we have some very difficult weeks ahead of us’.  

He said that 100,000 daily infections were not out of the question, compared to a winter peak of around 26,000 confirmed cases per day. 

The numbers dropped to around 7,000 per day in mid-February but have more than doubled since then, climbing back to an average of 15,000 on Friday. 

Germany’s death toll is already at 75,623, the vast majority of them coming in the second wave after the country successfully suppressed the first. 

The British variant of Covid-19 is blamed in part for the latest growth in cases which comes despite a four-month lockdown in which many businesses remain closed.  

No European country has ever recorded 100,000 new cases in a day, although the UK is thought to have had that many in the first wave when testing was limited. 

The highest figure recorded in Germany to date was the 33,777 infections added to the tally on December 18, just after the country had entered its current lockdown. 

A Covid-19 patient is treated by medical staff wearing protective gear at an intensive care unit of the Robert Bosch hospital in Stuttgart this week

A Covid-19 patient is treated by medical staff wearing protective gear at an intensive care unit of the Robert Bosch hospital in Stuttgart this week 

Merkel this week sought to tighten restrictions further by imposing a five-day shutdown over Easter in which even grocery stores would largely have closed. 

But the plan was widely condemned as unworkable and scrapped only 36 hours later when an apologetic Merkel said the policy had been a ‘mistake’. 

Nonetheless, millions of Germans are facing tough restrictions under an ’emergency brake’ mechanism that kicks in when cases surpass 100 per 100,000 people in a week.

That is now the case in more than half of Germany’s 412 districts, meaning that the majority of Germany’s 83million population could soon be over the threshold. 

Measures under consideration for those areas include new curfews as well as forcing people to wear masks in their own cars.  

Germany's top diseases official Lothar Wieler (left) and health minister Jens Spahn (right) both sounded new warnings about the third wave today

Germany’s top diseases official Lothar Wieler (left) and health minister Jens Spahn (right) both sounded new warnings about the third wave today 

The prolonged restrictions have sapped public confidence in Merkel’s government, sending her party’s poll ratings into freefall six months before an election. 

Frustration has also grown over the sluggish vaccine roll-out, which has yet to give a first dose to 10 per cent of the population. 

Spahn today called on local authorities to take a more flexible approach to vaccination, for example by offering unused vaccine doses to anyone aged over 70.

The health minister said Germany was in the final phase of the pandemic ‘marathon’ but voiced fears that the health system could reach its limit as soon as next month.

Germany currently has 3,260 patients in intensive care, a figure lower than the winter peak of 5,762 but which has risen noticeably in recent weeks.  

Spahn also said a requirement for all airline passengers entering Germany to provide a negative coronavirus test would come into force at midnight on Monday.