Germany’s ‘lockdown light’ strategy has failed: the country, which has been widely-praised for its response to the pandemic, recorded a daily record of 952 coronavirus-related deaths last night. After experiencing relatively low numbers of infections and fatalities compared with other European countries in the spring, Germany has plunged into a crisis.
It’s true that Wednesday’s number was artificially inflated by delayed reporting of data from the state of Saxony, one of the coronavirus hotspots in Germany. But even without the 153 coronavirus-related deaths recorded in that region, the grim tally marks a new peak. The Robert Koch Institute, the national disease control agency, also reported 27,728 new infections on Wednesday, a 33 per cent rise on the same day last week. The total number of infections in Germany stands at 1,379,238, with just over one million having recovered from the virus.
The high infection and death rates in recent weeks have made politicians gravely worried.
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