Germany is facing a very sharp increase in coronavirus contaminations, according to the vice-president of the Robert Koch institute, with 17,000 cases declared in 24 hours.

For the German Minister of Health, the country is in the middle of the third wave of the pandemic. 

Germany is facing a "very clearly exponential" increase in Covid-19 infections, linked in particular to the spread of the British variant, said Friday the vice-president of the Institute for Public Health Surveillance Robert Koch (RKI) .

"It is quite possible that at Easter we have a situation similar to the one we experienced before Christmas, with a very high number of cases, many serious cases and deaths, and overwhelmed hospitals," warned during 'a Lars Schaade press conference.

"We are in the third wave of the pandemic, the figures are increasing, the proportion of variants is high," added the Minister of Health, Jens Spahn.

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Germany has recorded more than 17,000 officially reported cases in 24 hours, around 5,000 more than a week ago.

The incidence rate reached 95.6 Friday (against 90 Thursday), very close to the 100 mark supposed to trigger new restrictions.

Angela Merkel and the leaders of the 16 Länder will meet on Monday to decide on possible new closures, so the country was able to make some easing in early March.

Vaccinations with AstraZeneca resume this Friday

Germany is counting on the ramp-up of its vaccination campaign to stop this increase.

Vaccinations with the AstraZeneca vaccine will resume this Friday, after four days of interruption.

But "an honest analysis of the situation shows that there are not yet enough vaccines in Europe to stop the third wave by vaccination alone", admitted Jens Spahn.

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"Even though deliveries of EU orders are now reliable, it will be several weeks before the at-risk groups are fully vaccinated," he added.

"Only then will we be able to talk about wider openings in society. So we will still need some resistance," said the Conservative minister. 

"You can turn it as you want, we must return to the lockdown," said Karl Lauterbach, health expert of the Social Democratic Party, during this press conference.