Germany mulls longer shutdown as virus deaths top 1,000

BERLIN: Germany's daily coronavirus death toll crossed 1,000 for the first time on Wednesday, with politicians predicting an extension of the county's partial lockdown beyond the current January 10 deadline.

A total of 1,129 deaths were reported by the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) disease control centre, breaking the previous record of 962 logged last Wednesday.

There were 22,459 new daily infections, the RKI said.

"The infection and death figures show that we are still very far from normality," Health Minister Jens Spahn told reporters in Berlin.

"I don't see how, in this situation, we can return to how things were before the lockdown," he added.

An apparent drop in new infections and deaths in recent days was a result of local authorities not sending in their data over the Christmas period, the RKI said.

Germany is under a partial lockdown until January 10, with most shops closed along with schools, restaurants, cultural and leisure facilities.

Spahn on Tuesday told German broadcaster ARD that the country was "nowhere near where we need to be" and "there will undoubtedly be measures" after January 10.

Chancellor Angela Merkel and leaders of Germany's 16 federal states will meet on January 5 to decide on future measures.

Armin Laschet, the leader of Germany's most populous state of North Rhine-Westphalia, told the DPA news agency that "no one can seriously raise this hope" of restrictions ending soon.

Berlin mayor Michael Mueller also told the ZDF broadcaster he believes "we will have to continue to live with restrictions" for some time.

The eastern regions of Saxony and Thuringia remain hotspots in the country, with 330 and 255 infections per 100,000 inhabitants respectively.

More than 32,000 people have now died from the virus in Germany, which appeared to fare relatively well in the first wave of coronavirus in the spring but has been hit hard by a second wave.

The country began its vaccination drive on Saturday, with a 101-year-old woman in a care home becoming the first person to receive the Pfizer-BioNTech jab.

Around 42,000 people have so far received a first dose of the vaccine, data released Tuesday said.

Britain on Wednesday approved a second coronavirus vaccine developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca, which is cheaper and easier to transport than the Pfizer-BioNTech jab.

However, the European Medicines Agency is unlikely to approve it in January, the regulator's deputy executive director Noel Walthion told Belgian newspaper Het Nieuwsblad on Tuesday.