China News Service, Berlin, November 26 (Reporter Peng Dawei) The number of newly diagnosed new crown cases in Germany in a single day set a record for two consecutive days. 150,000 cases.

In view of the new discovery of a highly infectious mutant strain in South Africa, the German government announced on the same day that it will restrict flights between the country and South Africa from midnight on the 26th, and only allow German citizens to take flights back home.

  The German disease control agency Robert Koch Institute announced that the number of new diagnoses and the number of new deaths were 76,414 and 357 respectively. As of that day, a total of 5,650,170 were diagnosed and 100,476 were dead.

Among them, the country's official "accumulated number of newly confirmed cases per 100,000 people in seven days" (incidence rate index) used to monitor the severity of the epidemic rose to 438.2 on the same day.

The index has continued to break through the single-day extreme value since November 8.

There were 124 new patients requiring ICU intensive care treatment, bringing the total number to 4326.

As of that day, Germany had received a total of 120.4 million doses of the new crown vaccine, and a total of 56.8 million people had been fully vaccinated, accounting for about 68.3% of the country's total population.

  According to a German TV station, the newly discovered variant strain of the B.1.1.529 new crown virus in South Africa is considered to be much more infectious than the previously circulating strains such as Delta.

In response to this situation, German Federal Minister of Health Span announced on the same day that flights between the country and South Africa will be restricted from midnight on the 26th, and then only German citizens will be allowed to return home by flight.

Flights between Germany and some of South Africa's neighboring countries will also be restricted.

  Prior to this, in response to the deteriorating epidemic situation in Germany, the caretaker Chancellor Merkel, whose term of office has entered a countdown, had called for the “closure of the city” measures to restrict interpersonal contact as soon as possible, but did not receive a response from the upcoming new ruling coalition.

Since it will take some time for the new government to be sworn in, experts on epidemic prevention have already criticized the current situation.

  Michael Meyer-Hellmann, an expert at the Helmholtz Infectious Disease Research Center in Germany, said that the most severe peak of the epidemic so far unfortunately caught up with the handover of the German government. “The power vacuum wasted time. That's the problem."

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