Germany reports 342 new COVID-19 cases, total at 182,370

New COVID-19 infections in Germany remained under last week's average as the number of confirmed cases increased by 342 within one day to 182,370, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) announced on Wednesday.

Xinhua June 4, 2020

Tourists sit on a sightseeing tricycle in Berlin, capital of Germany, May 26, 2020. [Photo/Xinhua]

New COVID-19 infections in Germany remained under last week's average as the number of confirmed cases increased by 342 within one day to 182,370, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) announced on Wednesday.

Over the course of last week, an average of 457 daily cases had been recorded by the RKI, the federal government agency for disease control and prevention.

According to the RKI, the number of deaths from the new coronavirus in Germany increased by 29 to 8,551 by Tuesday. The case fatality rate in Germany was unchanged at 4.7 percent.

The number of people currently infected with COVID-19 in Germany continued to fall to around 15,000 by Tuesday as the estimated number of people who had already recovered increased by around 800 within one day to 167,300, the RKI noted.

The 4-day average reproduction rate (R-number) of COVID-19 in Germany once again fell below one and decreased to 0.89, according to the RKI daily situation report for Tuesday.

Chancellor Angela Merkel and the RKI had stressed numerous times that the R-number had to be below one in order to ease restrictions in Germany. An R-number below one indicates that one infected person is passing on the disease to less than one person on average.

Since new daily COVID-19 infections in Germany have fallen well below peak values, the RKI has been stressing that the R-number in Germany was "sensitive to short-term changes" as caused by a local cluster infection after family celebrations in the district of Goettingen.

On Tuesday, the city of Goettingen announced that 80 people so far tested positive for COVID-19. The city was planning to test an additional 700 contact persons and all schools in the city area would be closed as a preventive measure until the end of the week.


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