Berlin-Every weekday at 11am come to the Berliner Zeitung English Edition for the corona/Covid-19 news at a glance.
🚥 The latest corona stats for Berlin (tallied Wednesday, 20 January)
New cases in one day: 732 (884 Tuesday)
Total number of corona deaths: 1,957 (+39 over Tuesday)
🟢 R number: 0.78 (0.92 Tuesday)
🔴 New infections per week: 136.6/100,000 inhabitants (144.2 Tuesday)
🔴 Share of Berlin ICUs occupied by Covid-19 patients: 30.5 per cent (30.4 per cent Tuesday)
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Source: Berlin's coronavirus status page
The lowdown...
Germany-wide incidence dropping
Looks like we're doing something right: the Robert Koch Institute reported 119.0 new corona cases per 100,000 inhabitants - the lowest incidence rate since 1 November. The highest nationwide figure so far was 197.6 - recorded on 22 December. The figure for Berlin currently lies at 136.6. Thuringia and Brandenburg currently report the highest incidence rates in Germany. Bremen has the lowest.
Stricter border controls?
Angela Merkel's chief of staff Helge Braun (CDU) has called on all EU countries to do more to stop the spread of the coronavirus - especially in view of the more contagious "British variant". Speaking on ARD TV Thursday morning, Braun said if member states failed to bring down infection rates, "even stricter entry rules on our borders will be unavoidable." On Thursday, EU leaders be discussing the possibility of tougher travel rules during a online summit.
Nurses against vaccination?
A new German survey on what types of people oppose getting vaccinated against the coronavirus suggests that young women working in nursing and care professions as well as midwives are particularly reluctant about getting the shot. The "Cosmo Covid-19 Snapshot Monitoring" study found that while between 71 and 89 per cent of doctors, pharmacists and physiotherapists want to get immunised, only 23-36 per cent of people working in nursing, caring and midwifery were keen to get the jab. Apparently, many Germans remain sceptical about potential side effects.
In case you missed it...
It took nearly a year of corona lockdown for grocery delivery to really become a thing in Berlin. Now it's booming.
That's all for now, folks. Stay safe!
Yours,
The Berliner Zeitung English team
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