Tag Archives: Germany

Record daily German COVID deaths spark Merkel ‘mega-lockdown’ plan: Bild

By Andreas Rinke and Caroline Copley

BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany recorded a new record number of deaths from the coronavirus on Thursday, prompting calls for an even tighter lockdown after the country emerged relatively unscathed in 2020.

Chancellor Angela Merkel wanted a “mega-lockdown,” mass-selling newspaper Bild reported, shutting down the country almost completely for fear of fast-spreading variant of the virus first detected in Britain.

She was considering measures including shutting down both local and long-distance public transport, though such steps had not yet been decided, Bild reported.

While Germany’s total deaths per capita since the pandemic began remain far lower than the United States, its daily per capita mortality since mid-December has often exceeded that of the United States.

Germany’s daily death toll currently equates to about 15 deaths per million people, versus a 13 U.S. deaths per million.

The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) reported 25,164 new coronavirus cases and 1,244 fatalities, bringing Germany’s total death toll since the start of the pandemic to 43,881.

Germany initially managed the pandemic better than its neighbors with a strict lockdown last spring, but it has seen a sharp rise in cases and deaths in recent months, with the RKI saying people were not taking the virus seriously enough.

RKI president Lothar Wieler said on Thursday restrictions were not being implemented as consistently as they were during the first wave and said more people should work from home, adding that the current lockdown needed to be tightened further.

Germany introduced a partial lockdown in November that kept shops and schools open, but it tightened the rules in mid-December, closing non-essential stores, and children have not returned to classrooms since the Christmas holidays.

Hospitals in 10 out of Germany’s 16 states were facing bottlenecks as 85% of intensive care unit beds were occupied by coronavirus patients, Wieler said.

A meeting of regional leaders planned for Jan. 25 to discuss whether to extend the lockdown into February should be brought forward, said Winfried Kretschmann, the premier of the state of Baden-Wuerttemberg.

Merkel was due to speak to ministers on Thursday about ramping up production of vaccines.

So far only about 1% of the German population has been vaccinated, or 842,455 people, the RKI reported.

Germany has so far recorded 16 cases of people with the fast-spreading strain of the virus first detected in Britain and four with the strain from South Africa, Wieler said, although he admitted gene sequencing of samples was not being done broadly.

Wieler urged people who were offered a COVID-19 vaccination to accept it.

“At the end of the year we will have this pandemic under control,” Wieler said. Enough vaccines would then be available to inoculate the entire population, he said.

(Reporting by Kirsti Knolle and Thomas Escritt, Writing by Caroline Copley and Emma Thomasson, Editing by Riham Alkousaa, Angus MacSwan, William Maclean and Nick Macfie)

Germany introduces tougher restrictions in pandemic battle

By Andreas Rinke and Holger Hansen

BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany is extending its nationwide lockdown until the end of the month and introducing tougher new restrictions in an effort to curb surging coronavirus infections, Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Tuesday.

“We need to restrict contact more strictly… We ask all citizens to restrict contact to the absolute minimum,” Merkel told reporters after a meeting with the leaders of Germany’s 16 federal states.

The new rules restrict for the first time non-essential travel for residents of hard-hit areas all over Germany.

They limit movement to a 15-kilometre (nine-mile) radius in towns and districts where the number of new coronavirus cases is above 200 per 100,000 residents over seven days.

Members of any one household will be allowed to meet only one other person in public. That compares with a current rule under which public gatherings are limited to five people from two households.

Like many other European countries, Germany is struggling to contain a second wave of the virus. Britain began its third COVID-19 lockdown on Tuesday with citizens under orders to stay at home.

Concern is growing that hospitals in Germany will struggle to cope, and Merkel said a new mutation of the coronavirus first detected in Britain increased the need to be more cautious.

SHOPS, SCHOOLS TO STAY SHUT

Shops and restaurants will remain shut until the end of January. Schools are also to remain closed, with classes to be held online, until at least the end of the month.

“We believe these measures are justified, even if they are hard,” Merkel said.

The chancellor said she and the state leaders would review the new measures on Jan. 25.

The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany rose by 11,897 to 1.787 million in the last day, the Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases said on Tuesday. The death toll rose by 944 to 35,518.

Germany had imposed a partial lockdown in November but was forced to close schools, shops and restaurants in mid-December after the initial steps failed to have the desired impact.

Germany is rolling out a vaccine against COVID-19 but the media and some officials have criticized the government for a slow start and for ordering too few doses. By Tuesday, around 317,000 people had received a shot.

(Additional reporting by Madeline Chambers, Joseph Nasr and Sabine Siebold; writing by Madeline Chambers and Maria Sheahan, Editing by Alexandra Hudson and Gareth Jones)

U.S. Supreme Court hears World War Two-era Jewish property claims

By Lawrence Hurley

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The lingering legacy of World War Two reached the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday as the justices weighed two cases involving claims by Jews in Germany and Hungary and their descendants whose property was taken amid persecution that culminated in the Holocaust.

The justices heard arguments in the two cases that hinge upon a federal law called the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act that limits the jurisdiction of American courts over lawsuits against foreign governments.

In one case, the justices considered Germany’s bid to avoid facing a lawsuit in a U.S. court over medieval artwork that its former Nazi government pressured Jewish art dealers to sell in the 1930’s. The other concerns Hungary’s similar attempt to avoid litigation originally brought by 14 U.S. citizens who survived that nation’s World War Two-era campaign of genocide against its Jewish population.

The justices appeared more sympathetic to the arguments made by Germany than Hungary, while also recognizing foreign policy concerns of allowing such claims to be heard in U.S. courts.

The Germany case focuses upon a 17th century collection of medieval art known as the Welfenschatz that includes gem-studded busts of Christian saints, golden crucifixes and other precious objects. The plaintiffs – heirs of the art dealers – have said they are the rightful owners of the collection.

They sued in U.S. federal court in Washington in 2015, saying Germany owes them either the return of the artwork or more than $250 million in damages.

In 1935, a group of Jewish art dealers in Germany sold the collection to the state of Prussia, then being administered by prominent Nazi official Hermann Goering. The plaintiffs said that the sale was a “sham transaction” made under duress.

The art collection is currently in the possession of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, a German governmental entity.

Germany has said that U.S. courts have no role because the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act does not allow claims over the alleged seizure of a citizen’s property by its own government. Some justices questioned that assumption, with Justices Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas among others wondering if “stateless people” who are stripped of citizenship would be left without recourse.

Some justices said the language of the U.S. law seems to be clear that domestic property claims can be permitted if they fall within a broader genocide claim.

“It seems to cover the kind of property-taking that is at issue in this case,” Justice Elena Kagan said.

But Kagan and others also appeared to be worried about a ruling along those lines in part because it might require judges to undertake the contentious task of determining what constitutes a genocide.

A federal judge in Washington ruled against Germany in 2017. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit narrowed the case the following year, saying claims could proceed against the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation but not against Germany’s government itself.

The Hungarian Holocaust survivors filed suit in Washington in 2010 seeking restitution for possessions taken from them and their families when they were forced to board trains destined for concentration camps. A federal judge tossed out the lawsuit in 2017 but the D.C. Circuit revived it a year later, prompting Hungary to appeal to the high court.

Hungary has said that the possibility of “international friction” raised by the lawsuit means it should be dismissed and that the plaintiffs should sue in Hungary first.

The justices appeared reluctant to rule that foreign policy concerns could always be cited as a reason to toss out a lawsuit, but some also seemed reluctant to conclude that such issues should not be taken into account.

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Additional reporting by Jan Wolfe; Editing by Will Dunham)

Merkel warns Germany needs tougher lockdown to get through winter

By Andreas Rinke

BERLIN (Reuters) – German leaders came out on Monday in favor of stricter measures to curb the spread of the coronavirus, a few days after the country posted its highest one-day death toll so far.

Chancellor Angela Merkel told party colleagues that existing lockdown measures – with bars and restaurants closed and shops admitting limited numbers – were too little to get the virus under control.

“The situation is getting very serious: these measures will not be enough to get us through the winter,” participants said she had told a meeting of her conservative bloc’s legislators.

Daily infections are no longer rising as sharply as previously in Germany, Europe’s largest economy, but they have stagnated at a high level and the highest single-day coronavirus death toll yet was reported last Wednesday.

Markus Soeder, premier of the southern state of Bavaria, which has the nation’s highest death toll, said he was certain regional and national leaders would agree tighter measures before Christmas. They had previously agreed not to revisit lockdown rules before Jan. 10.

Although vaccines that are expected to help contain the pandemic are on their way, available doses are limited, meaning that only certain groups, notably the very elderly, can expect to be inoculated during the winter, an expert panel ruled on Monday.

Meanwhile, some states are going further on their own initiative: Rhineland-Palatinate banned takeaway sales of mulled wine in a bid to discourage disease-spreading impromptu street parties.

From Wednesday, Bavaria will allow people to leave home only for essential reasons, while evening curfews are planned for hotspots with the highest infection rates.

Data from the Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases on Monday morning showed the number of confirmed cases rose by 12,332 in the past 24 hours to 1,183,655. The reported death toll rose 147 to 18,919 – still well below that of large European peers such as Spain, France and Italy.

(Writing by Thomas Escritt and Caroline Copley Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Five killed, including baby, as car plows into pedestrian zone in Germany

BERLIN (Reuters) – Five people including a nine-month-old baby were killed and up to 15 injured on Tuesday when a speeding car ploughed into a pedestrian area in the western German city of Trier in what authorities said appeared to be a deliberate act.

Witnesses said people screamed in panic and some were thrown into the air by the car as it crashed through the shopping zone.

“We have arrested one person, one vehicle has been secured,” police said, adding that a 51-year-old German suspect from the Trier area had been overpowered within minutes of the incident and was now being questioned.

Prosecutor Peter Fritzen later told a news conference the suspect had drunk a significant amount of alcohol, and authorities were not working on the assumption that there was any Islamist militant motive to the incident.

Trier Mayor Wolfram Leibe said: “It looks as if we are talking about a suspect with mental issues, but we should not pass premature judgement.”

Authorities said a more thorough assessment of the suspect’s mental health would be necessary to determine whether he could be held criminally liable.

The suspect had spent the last few nights in the vehicle and did not seem to have a fixed address, Trier deputy police chief Franz-Dieter Ankner said. He had borrowed the vehicle, which was registered in someone else’s name, and did not appear to have a police record.

Mayor Leibe said a nine-month-old baby was among the dead.

The interior minister of Rhineland-Palatinate state, Roger Lewentz, said two women aged 25 and 73 and a man, 45, all from Trier, were also killed. Later, police said a fifth person had also died, with German media reporting that the latest victim was a 52-year old woman. Several of the injured were in critical condition.

TRUCK ATTACK

The incident shocked residents of Germany’s oldest town, founded by the Romans more than 2,000 years ago.

“We have a driver who ran amok in the city,” Leibe told public broadcaster SWR.

“I just walked through the city center and it was just horrible. There is a gym shoe lying on the ground, and the girl it belongs to is dead,” he said. He told broadcaster N-TV that people who saw the incident were “totally traumatized”.

The Trierischer Volksfreund quoted a witness as saying a Range Rover was driving at high speed and people had been thrown through the air. It said the car had Trier plates.

Officers scoured the area in search of evidence, backed by police carrying automatic weapons. In the streets, Christmas lights twinkled incongruously.

Chancellor Angela Merkel said in a statement: “The news from Trier makes me very sad. My sympathy goes to the families of those whose lives were so suddenly and violently torn away from them. I am also thinking of the people who suffered injuries, in some cases very serious ones, and I wish them strength.”

Germany has tightened security on pedestrian zones across the country since a truck attack on a Berlin Christmas market in 2016 that killed 12 people and injured dozens.

In October 2019, a man opened fire on a synagogue in the city of Halle. After failing to get into the building he went on a rampage outside, killing two people.

In February this year a racist gunman killed nine migrants in Hanau near Frankfurt before killing his mother and himself.

Germany has closed bars and restaurants as part of steps to fight the coronavirus, but shops and schools are still open.

(Reporting by Thomas Seythal, Sabine Siebold, Riham Alkoussa and Madeline Chambers; Writing by Maria Sheahan and Giles Elgood; Editing Angus MacSwan and Rosalba O’Brien)

Foreign donors make Afghan aid pledges with tougher conditions

GENEVA (Reuters) – The United States pledged $600 million in civilian aid to Afghanistan next year at a key donor conference on Tuesday, but made half of it conditional on progress in U.S.-brokered peace talks underway with the Taliban.

Dozens of nations, international institutions and the European Union combined to pledge billions in aid for Afghanistan at the conference in Geneva. But many, including the United States and Germany, slapped strict conditions on future funding and some committed for just the next year – departing from four-year pledges made in the past.

Diplomats said keeping financing for Afghanistan on a tight leash could provide foreign governments with some leverage to inject a greater sense of urgency into a halting peace process.

“We’re pleased to pledge today $300 million…with the remaining $300 million available as we review progress in the peace process,” U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs David Hale said in a virtual address to the conference.

The United States has contributed roughly $800 million a year in civilian aid in recent years.

Another top donor, Germany, pledged 430 million euros ($510.88 million) in 2021 and signaled it would keep contributing until 2024 but also stressed that progress towards ending almost 20 years of war was needed.

Talks in the Qatari capital Doha between the Afghan government and Islamist Taliban insurgents began in September but have been mired in procedural wrangling as violence has resurged around the country.

But Hale said “significant progress” had recently been made, including a tentative agreement on ground rules that could allow negotiators to proceed to the next stage of forming an agenda.

As the donors conference proceeded, two explosions rocked an outdoor market in the central province of Bamyan, usually considered one of Afghanistan’s safest areas, killing at least 14 people and wounding almost 45, mostly civilians.

COVID-19 UNCERTAINTIES

During the lead-up to the quadrennial international donors conference, diplomats reckoned Afghanistan could receive 15-20% less funding than the roughly $15.2 billion pledged at the last conference in Brussels in 2016 due to uncertainties over the peace process and difficulties securing commitments from governments financially strapped by the coronavirus pandemic.

Uncertainty over whether the compromises needed for peace might lead to backsliding on human and women’s rights has also made some countries wary about making long-term commitments to an Afghan administration, which needs foreign money to cover about three-quarters of its spending.

The European Union pledged 1.2 billion euros ($1.43 billion)over four years on Tuesday but emphasized aid was conditional.

“Afghanistan’s future trajectory must preserve the democratic and human rights gains since 2001, most notably as regards to women and children’s rights,” EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said.

“Any attempt to restore an Islamic emirate would have an impact on our political and financial engagement,” he added, referring to the Taliban’s previous hardline Islamist rule between 1996 and 2001.

Conference organizers have said curbing corruption was another wish on the part of countries considering donations.

Some such as Britain announced pledges covering only one year.

Britain said it would pledge $227 million in annual civilian and food aid. France pledged 88 million euros ($104.20 million) and Canada 270 million Canadian dollars ($206.66 million).

($1 = 0.8413 euros)

($1 = 1.3065 Canadian dollars)

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay and Emma Farge; Writing by Rupam Jain and Charlotte Greenfield; Editing by Mark Heinrich and Alistair Bell)

Super-cold container firm va-Q-tec expands to meet COVID-19 vaccine demand

By Ilona Wissenbach

FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Cold-storage specialist va-Q-tec is significantly expanding its fleet of 2,500 rental containers to meet growing demand to transport COVID-19 vaccines that need to be kept as low as -70 degrees Celsius (-94°F), its chief executive said.

The German company is in talks with all the major pharmaceutical manufacturers of COVID-19 vaccines, CEO Joachim Kuhn told Reuters in an interview.

Kuhn said the company would “significantly expand” its fleet of rental containers in the coming year. He did not specify how many extra containers were planned, though said it would not be to the extent of doubling the fleet.

Va-Q-tec is among a handful of high-end packaging providers who have found themselves in high demand as drugmakers and logistics firms prepare to transport such shots around the world. Its shares have risen by 230% this year, valuing the company at around $690 million.

The company’s turnover has increased by 30% annually over the past 10 years. “We expect this growth to continue in a similar form,” said the CEO, adding that global vaccine distribution might take several years.

“We are carefully increasing the number. With the market growing by more than 10% per year, we are not afraid that we will be left sitting on empty containers after corona.”

The Würzburg-based company completed a 25 million Swiss franc ($27.4 million) bond issue on Monday to help fund its expansion plans.

It manufactures “passive” containers, which use dry ice to keep the contents at ultra-cold temperatures for up to five or six days, as opposed to “active” containers that also use electric motors for cooling.

The vaccine candidate developed by Pfizer and BioNTech, which uses mRNA technology, needs to be kept at about -70 degrees Celsius, colder than the offerings from Moderna Inc and AstraZeneca PLC.

Kuhn said va-Q-tec had contracts with the world’s 20 largest airlines and major freight-forwarders. He said intercontinental transport with cargo flights was expected to be less of a problem than last-mile distribution on the road, given there was experience in transporting super-cold goods by air.

“To meet the demand for dry ice is not a big problem in our latitudes with sufficient regional production,” Kuhn said. “It will be a challenge in countries that do not have this infrastructure in Africa, Latin America or Russia.”

(Reporting by Ilona Wissenbach, Reuters TV; Writing by Jamie Freed; Editing by Pravin Char)

WHO chief looks forward to working ‘very closely’ with Biden team

By Stephanie Nebehay and Emma Farge

GENEVA (Reuters) – The World Health Organization chief welcomed efforts on Monday to strengthen the Geneva-based body through reform and said that it was looking forward to working closely with the administration of U.S. President-elect Joe Biden.

WHO’s funding must become more flexible and predictable to end a “major misalignment” between expectations and available resources, WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said, citing reform efforts by France, Germany and the European Union.

“We still have a lot of work left to do, but we believe that we’re on the right track,” Tedros told health ministers as the annual meeting resumed of the WHO, which groups 194 countries.

U.S. President Donald Trump has frozen U.S. funding to the WHO and begun a process that would see the United States withdraw from the body next July, drawing wide international criticism amid the COVID-19 crisis. He accuses the WHO of being “China-centric” in its handling of the pandemic, which Tedros has repeatedly denied.

Biden, who will convene a national coronavirus task force on Monday, said during campaigning he would rescind Trump’s decision to abandon the WHO on his first day in office.

Tedros urged the international community to recapture a sense of common purpose, adding: “In that spirit we congratulate President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris and we look forward to working with this administration very closely.

“We need to reimagine leadership, build on mutual trust and mutual accountability to end the pandemic and address the fundamental inequalities that lie at the root of so many of the world’s problems,” he said.

An oversight panel called last week for reforms at the WHO including “predictable and flexible” funding and setting up a multi-tiered system to warn countries earlier about disease outbreaks before they escalate.

Tedros, speaking from quarantine after being in contact with an individual with COVID-19 more than a week ago, began with a minute’s silence, noting that COVID-19 cases approached 50 million with 1.2 million deaths.

Speaking shortly before Pfizer Inc said its experimental COVID-19 vaccine was more than 90% effective, Tedros said vaccines being developed to curb the pandemic should be allocated fairly as “global public goods, not private commodities”.

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay and Emma Farge; Editing by Catherine Evans)

China, Russia hold off on congratulating Biden; U.S. allies rally round

By Cate Cadell and Dmitry Antonov

BEIJING/MOSCOW (Reuters) – China and Russia held off congratulating U.S. President-elect Joe Biden on Monday, with Beijing saying it would follow usual custom in its response and the Kremlin noting incumbent Donald Trump’s vow to pursue legal challenges.

Democrat Biden clinched enough states to win the presidency on Saturday and has begun making plans for when he takes office on Jan. 20. Trump has not conceded defeat and plans rallies to build support for legal challenges.

Some of the United States’ biggest and closest allies in Europe, the Middle East and Asia quickly congratulated Biden over the weekend despite Trump’s refusal to concede, as did some Trump allies, including Israel and Saudi Arabia.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Monday called for the European Union and United States to work “side by side,” holding up Biden as an experienced leader who knows Germany and Europe well and stressing the NATO allies’ shared values and interests.

Beijing and Moscow were cautious.

“We noticed that Mr. Biden has declared election victory,” China’s foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told a daily media briefing. “We understand that the U.S. presidential election result will be determined following U.S. law and procedures.”

In 2016, Chinese President Xi Jinping sent congratulations to Trump on Nov. 9, a day after the election.

Relations between China and the United States are at their worst in decades over disputes ranging from technology and trade to Hong Kong and the coronavirus, and the Trump administration has unleashed a barrage of sanctions against Beijing.

While Biden is expected to maintain a tough stance on China — he has called Xi a “thug” and vowed to lead a campaign to “pressure, isolate and punish China” — he is likely to take a more measured and multilateral approach.

Chinese state media struck an optimistic tone in editorials, saying relations could be restored to a state of greater predictability, starting with trade.

KREMLIN NOTES TRUMP’S LAW SUITS

The Kremlin said it would wait for the official results of the election before commenting, and that it had noted Trump’s announcement of legal challenges.

President Vladimir Putin has remained silent since Biden’s victory. In the run-up to the vote, Putin had appeared to hedge his bets, frowning on Biden’s anti-Russian rhetoric but welcoming his comments on nuclear arms control. Putin had also defended Biden’s son, Hunter, against criticism from Trump.

“We think it appropriate to wait for the official vote count,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on a conference call.

Biden cleared the threshold of 270 Electoral College votes needed to win the White House on Saturday, four days after the Nov. 3 election. He beat Trump by more than 4 million votes nationwide, making Trump the first president since 1992 to lose re-election.

Asked why, in 2016, Putin had congratulated Trump soon after he had won the Electoral College and beaten Democrat Hillary Clinton, Peskov said there was an obvious difference.

“You can see that there are certain legal procedures that have been announced by the current president. That is why the situations are different and we therefore think it appropriate to wait for an official announcement,” he said.

Peskov noted that Putin had repeatedly said he was ready to work with any U.S. leader and that Russia hoped it could establish dialogue with a new U.S. administration and find a way to normalize troubled bilateral relations.

Moscow’s ties with Washington sank to post-Cold War lows in 2014 when Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine. Biden was serving as vice president under President Barack Obama at the time.

Relations soured further over U.S. allegations that Moscow had meddled in the 2016 U.S. presidential election to try to tilt the vote in Trump’s favor, something the Kremlin denied.

(Additional reporting by Brenda Goh, Tony Munroe and Lusha Zhang in Beijing; Darya Korsunskaya and Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber in Moscow; Sabine Siebold in Berlin; Editing by Nick Tattersall and Catherine Evans)

Germany’s COVID-19 monitoring app shows second wave unbroken

By Douglas Busvine

BERLIN (Reuters) – A fitness tracker app launched this spring in Germany to monitor the spread of COVID-19 indicates that recently imposed social-distancing measures have yet to slow a second wave of infection, the scientist leading the project told Reuters.

Over half a million people have connected their smartwatches and fitness trackers to the Corona-Datenspende (Corona Data Donation) app, making it possible to construct a ‘fever curve’ based on readings such as pulse or steps taken.

An elevated pulse can reveal that a person is running a high temperature, while they would take fewer steps if they feel unwell. Taking the readings together can serve as a basis for estimating COVID-19 infection trends.

Crunching that raw data requires adjustments and, after tweaks to the app’s algorithm to take into account that people tend to exercise more in good weather, that fever curve now serves as a reliable leading indicator of COVID-19 trends.

“At the moment we can see that the fever curve seems to precede the case count by between three days and a week,” said Dirk Brockmann, of the Institute for Theoretical Biology at the Humboldt University in Berlin.

That’s the good news. The bad news is that extensive social restrictions announced last week and imposed across Germany from Monday – including shutting restaurants, gyms and theatres – have yet to have a decisive impact.

“The curve is still heading upwards – it looks more linear but we don’t see a bending of the fever curve,” added Brockmann, who also leads a project group at the Robert Koch Institute that models how infectious diseases spread.

Brockmann emphasized that the fever curve does not provide an accurate forecast of infections – but it can flag important shifts in trend or turning points.

The Robert Koch Institute, Germany’s center for disease control, reported a record daily COVID-19 caseload on Friday of 21,506, bringing the total since the outbreak of the pandemic to 619,089. The death toll rose by 166 to 11,096.

The Corona Data Donation app, developed with healthtech startup Thryve, works on wearable devices such as Apple Watches or Fitbit fitness trackers.

(Reporting by Douglas Busvine; Editing by Keith Weir)