The more contagious Delta variant is spreading more and more in Germany.

It now accounts for at least 35 percent of the samples examined, said the President of the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), Lothar Wieler, in a switch of the federal and state health ministers, as the German Press Agency learned from participants.

Several media had previously reported about it.

Since the data are already a few days old, the proportion can actually be estimated at around 50 percent.

Officially, the RKI always publishes the new information on the virus variant proportions on Wednesday evening.

Delta is even more contagious than Alpha, as Wieler said on Friday.

The variant spreads mainly in the unvaccinated population.

Wieler had already said that the number of cases is therefore likely to rise again.

Experts recently explained that the nationwide seven-day incidence is declining with the significant decline in the number of cases due to the previously prevalent alpha variant.

In the second week of June, according to the latest RKI figures in Germany, the delta share was already 15 percent.

According to the experts, people under the age of 60 are primarily affected by the delta variant at the moment.

Most of the infections happened in private households.

RKI numbers are falling from week to week

On Monday morning, the RKI reported 219 new corona infections within one day.

For comparison: a week ago the value was 346 infections.

The RKI gave the seven-day incidence nationwide as 5.6 (previous day: 5.7; previous week: 8.6).

Across Germany, eight new deaths were reported within 24 hours.

A week ago there were ten dead.

The number of people who died with or with a proven infection with the Sars-CoV-2 virus rose to 90,762.

The RKI has counted 3,726,929 detected infections with Sars-CoV-2 since the beginning of the pandemic.

The actual total number is likely to be significantly higher, as many infections are not detected.

The RKI stated the number of those who had recovered at around 3,620,800.