In the corona pandemic, the steady decline in the number of cases could be stopped for the time being.
In the week up to May 29, the nationwide seven-day incidence fell by 37 percent compared to the previous week, writes the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) in the Covid 19 weekly report on Thursday evening.
In the current week, however, the decline in incidence is stagnating.
Most of the report relates to last week.
The data on virus variants shows that the omicron subline BA.5 is playing an increasing role in Germany.
Among other things, it has already caused a significant increase in the number of cases in South Africa and Portugal.
In Germany, random surveys have been recording an approximate doubling of the proportion from week to week since around the end of April.
However, this is still happening at a very low level: According to the current RKI data, the BA.5 variant now accounts for 5.2 percent of all cases of infection.
As before, however, the majority of subline BA.2 is still found.
BA.4 evidence is also increasing somewhat, but in the range of less than one percent.
As the report further shows, the number of PCR tests for Sars-CoV-2 in Germany has fallen to less than 500,000 per week for the first time in months.
The Ascension Day holiday probably also plays a role.
The RKI also calls for compliance with recommendations for avoiding infection.
In particular, it appeals to risk groups and people over the age of 70 to protect themselves against a serious illness with a second booster vaccination.