Coronavirus: Germany passed 20,000 cases and was on the brink of health collapse | the Chronicle

The German health portfolio reported 21,506 cases of the coronavirus last Friday, which marks the largest daily increase since the start of the pandemic. In addition, in this country, alerts for pressure on hospital capacity and intensive care units, as bed occupancy has doubled in the last 10 days.

The figures delivered this Friday by the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), the body in charge of infectious disease control, brings the total number of infections in Germany to 619,089, while the current death toll has risen by 166 in the past 24 hours to a total of 11,096, German news agency DPA reported.

The RKI estimates that around 402,500 people have recovered from the disease and added that as of Thursday the reproduction figure, or R-value, was 0.79, meaning that every ten infected infect around eight people, against 0.81 the day before.

For his part, the German Minister of Health, Jens Spahn, warned this Friday that “even the best health care system” it cannot, in the long term, cope with a relentless increase in cases.

“The number of people requiring intensive care due to Covid-19 has doubled in the last 10 days”, alerted Spahn, who was infected with coronavirus and has already recovered.

On the other hand, the minister admitted that “To this day, the health system can still manage this”. However, he stressed that Germany remains in a “decisive phase” of the pandemic.

“The rate of growth is slowing, but we are still seeing growth”, he pointed Spahn, who claimed that “Once the intensive care units are full of Covid-19 patients and if they are overcrowded, then it will be too late.”.