Germany hits 1,000 new cases for first time since May amid fears of second wave

A coronavirus testing site in Germany
REUTERS
Rebecca Speare-Cole6 August 2020

The number of confirmed new coronavirus cases in Germany has hit 1,000 for the first time since early May.

It comes amid signs that the relaxing of social distancing rules is raising the risk of a second wave of the disease.

According to data published by the Robert Koch Institute early on Thursday morning, the number of new infections rose by 1,045 to 213,067.

Figures have been steadily creeping up for weeks after hitting a low of 159 in July.

With Europe's largest economy only now starting to recover from the near-total lockdown that was imposed in March to stem the disease's spread, any sign of renewed restrictions on the horizon will dismay investors.

The head of the German doctors' union said earlier this week that Germany was already contending with a second wave of Covid-19 and risks squandering its early success by flouting social distancing rules.

A customer wearing a bike helmet carries packages into a post office advertising face masks sold inside in Berlin
AFP via Getty Images

Officials, including Health Minister Jens Spahn, have warned that it will become far harder to control the spread of new infections from autumn onwards.

This makes it all the more important to keep numbers down as the summer draws to a close.

The lockdown and social distancing pushed the number of new cases down to as low as 159 in mid-July.

But numbers have been rising since, fuelled by local outbreaks, including one centred on a slaughterhouse that required restrictions to be placed on the entire town of Guetersloh.

Ominously, a poll for Der Spiegel magazine showed four-fifths of Germans expect the further lockdowns to be imposed to control the coronavirus pandemic.

Half of them expect future measures to be more severe.

Mr Spahn is due to give a news conference on the latest developments in infection numbers later on Thursday.

The rise in cases come as Spain struggles to control a massive spike in the virus which saw the country's air bridge with the UK scrapped last month.

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