German officials warned on Thursday that the coronavirus crisis is far from over despite the country slowly reopening its economy and trying to get life back to normal.
Germany has reported more than 166,000 infections and more than 7,000 deaths but the European Union’s most populous country has fared better than some of its peers due to early testing and distancing measures.
“CASE NUMBERS ARE FALLING BUT THIS IS NOT AN ALL-CLEAR SIGNAL”
“We are not living after the pandemic now – rather we are living in the middle of a pandemic, one that will be with us for a while – at least for this year and that’s being very optimistic,” Helge Braun, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s chief of staff, told Deutschlandfunk radio on Thursday.
A senior German health official warned on Thursday there could be a second coronavirus wave before autumn depending on people’s behaviour, just as the country is opening up its economy again.
Case numbers are falling but this is not an all-clear signal, Lars Schaade, Vice President of the Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases, said at a news conference.