Germany Witnesses Record Death Rate on First Day of Lockdown

Dec, 2020 - By SMI

Officials in Germany have observed a record death toll due to COVID-19 on the first day of partial lockdown which commenced on 16^th December 2020.

Chancellor Angela Merkel had announced a partial lockdown from 16^th December to 10^th January 2020 in which companies have been advised to allow employees to work from home or offer extended company holidays across 16 states in Germany. However, the country has registered a record number of COVID-19 deaths on the first day of lockdown. The total number of deaths resulting from COVID-19 in the past 24 hours was 952, as stated by the Robert Koch Institute, a public health institute in Germany. The institute also confirmed a total number of 27,728 registered cases of COVID-19 which is closer to the count of 30,000 daily infections which were reported on Friday.

The daily fatalities record reached on Friday reported deaths of around 600 people, with the number of people in intensive care reaching an alarming rate in the country. According to the Interdisciplinary Association for Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine (DIVI), as of Wednesday, over 80% of the beds in intensive care units are occupied. The most recent figure was released following the commencement of a new lockdown in which non-essential stores and schools were shut down following an ‘exponential’ growth in the number of infected individuals.

The new lockdown measures are applicable until 10^th January 2020 with companies also advised to let their employees work remotely or to offer them extended company vacation. These measures were sanctioned by Chancellor Angela Merkel along with leaders of the country’s 16 states on 13^th December 2020. Germany which in the continent’s largest economy has coped comparatively well with the virus outbreak during the first wave, however, it has also struggled to control the resurgence of COVID-19 in the past few months.