Germany: COVID-19 cases decline for 4th day in a row

BERLIN

Germany has reported a decline in new coronavirus cases on Monday, as new infections remained under 18,000 for the fourth day in a row.

The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) registered 6,729 new infections over the past 24 hours, compared with 12,257 a day earlier. The daily rise had been 16,417 on Friday, and 17,862 on Thursday.

Government spokesman Steffen Seibert said the numbers have been declining thanks to the lockdown measures introduced last month.

“That is the outcome of the lockdown measures and the way they are implemented by the millions of people in a disciplined manner,” Seibert told a news conference in Berlin.

But he also underlined that the government is not considering relaxing lockdown measures due to the “very serious risks” posed by the fast-spreading mutated variants of the coronavirus.

Last week, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s coalition government decided to extend its strict lockdown until Feb. 14, as a precautionary measure to contain more contagious coronavirus mutations.

The German Health Ministry confirmed that the UK, Brazil and South Africa variants of the virus have been recently detected in the country, and announced a new program to closely track coronavirus mutations.

On Saturday, Berlin’s Vivantes Humboldt Hospital have been placed under quarantine after more than a dozen patients and hospital staff tested positive for the UK variant (B117 ) of the virus.

Germany handled the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic relatively well, but a second wave struck Europe's economic powerhouse hard since November.

The country experienced record number of new infections and deaths earlier this month.

Germany currently has the fifth-highest tally of coronavirus infections in Western Europe, behind the UK, France, Spain and Italy.

The national total now stands at over 2.14 million cases with at least 52,087 deaths.