BERLIN (AP) – Germany has surpassed the barrier of two million confirmed cases of coronavirus since the start of the pandemic.
The Robert Koch Institute, the German disease control agency, reported 22,368 new infections in the last 24 hours on Friday, for a total of 2,000,958 infections. The total number of deaths rose to 44,994, 1,113 more than the day before.
According to the news agency dpa, national newspapers published significantly more obituaries during the period to October 2020 than in the previous year.
The newspaper Saechsische Zeitung, which covers information from the eastern state of Saxony, badly affected by the latest virus outbreak, had three pages of obituaries instead of the usual two.
Separately, Belgium is tightening the rules for travelers arriving in the country by train or bus in a bid to slow the spread of a new, more contagious variant of the virus, first detected in Britain.
The Belgian Ministry of the Interior explained that those who arrive from a country outside the European Union or the Schengen area with a high rate of infections will have to comply with the same rules as those who travel by train or plane.
According to virologist Marc Van Ranst, who spoke to local broadcaster VRT on Friday, the country has so far registered about 100 cases of new variants of the virus. But this figure should be multiplied by 100 to get the true figure, he added.
Belgium, a nation of 11.5 million people, has recorded more than 20,000 deaths from COVID-19-related causes. Health authorities said on Friday there were 17,966 more deaths in 2020 than in the previous year.
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