More than 45 million people in Germany are now fully vaccinated against the corona virus.

This corresponds to a rate of 54.5 percent, as Federal Health Minister Jens Spahn (CDU) wrote on Twitter on Saturday.

A total of 51.8 million people or 62.3 percent received at least one first vaccination.

Most vaccines used, with the exception of Johnson & Johnson, currently require two doses for full protection against Covid-19.

The vaccination rate continues to stagnate.

Since the Saturday of the previous week, the number of people vaccinated for the first time has only increased by around 600,000 more people.

"Vaccination is a personal decision - but also one that affects all of us as a community," tweeted Spahn.

Everyone decides how well we can all get through autumn and winter.

Meanwhile, the nationwide seven-day incidence of new corona infections has risen again and is now 21.2.

As the Robert Koch Institute announced on Saturday morning, citing information from the health authorities, 3206 new infections and 24 other deaths related to the corona virus were recorded within 24 hours.

A week ago the incidence was 16.9.

According to the RKI, the vaccination campaign prevented tens of thousands of deaths

The seven-day incidence indicates the number of new infections per 100,000 inhabitants within a week.

The value has been rising continuously in Germany for weeks and exceeded the 20 mark for the first time since spring on this Friday. The highest incidence is currently in Schleswig-Holstein with a value of 38.4, in Berlin with 36.6 and in Saarland with 32.5.

The lowest incidences are currently recorded in Saxony (6.7), Thuringia (7.0) and Saxony-Anhalt (7.5).

On Tuesday, Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) wants to discuss the corona situation with the heads of government of the federal states.

Among other things, the future significance of the seven-day incidence and possible restrictions for unvaccinated people should be discussed.

The end of free corona tests should also be debated.

According to the latest information from the RKI, the total number of corona infections recorded in Germany since the beginning of the pandemic rose to 3,787,639. The total number of coronavirus-related deaths rose to 91,778. The RKI stated the number of those recovered from a corona infection at around 3,664,100.

According to a model calculation by the RKI, the vaccination campaign in Germany prevented thousands of deaths. "Our data presented here prove the outstanding benefit of the Covid-19 vaccination already in the first 6.5 months of the vaccination campaign in Germany in 2021," write the authors of the analysis published on Friday. This shows that an estimated 38,300 deaths were prevented in the course of the third corona wave. The number of reported cases prevented is put at over 706,000, that of inpatients to more than 76,600, and that of patients in the intensive care unit to just under 20,000.

"This high effectiveness of the Covid-19 vaccination campaign shows impressively that vaccinations pave the way out of the pandemic," writes the RKI. Germany is currently at the beginning of a fourth wave. In order to keep their extent as low as possible, it is necessary to increase the proportion of the vaccinated population as quickly as possible.

For the analysis, experts modeled a scenario with a vaccination campaign and one without. The actual reporting cases therefore differed from the cases calculated by the model, it said. The RKI also points out that various parameters and assumptions were included with certain uncertainties. For example, it is about the effects of prioritization. It was also assumed that all available vaccines would be used without delay. "In addition, it was assumed that without the vaccination campaign, apart from the existing non-pharmacological measures, no further measures would have been taken," the RKI restricts.