Today's corona news in 60 seconds

Berlin-Every weekday at 11am come to the Berliner Zeitung English Edition for the latest corona/Covid-19 news at a glance.

🚥 First, the official corona stats for Berlin (tallied Wednesday, 30 September)

🟢 R number: 0.93 (0.98 Tuesday)

🔴 New infections per week: 30.2 / 100,000 inhabitants (28.9 Tuesday)

🟢 Percentage of Covid-19 patients in intensive care: 2.4 per cent (2.1 per cent Tuesday)

Total number of corona deaths: 228 (no change)

Source: Berlin's coronavirus status page 

The lowdown...

Red light spells danger

One of Berlin’s corona "traffic lights" is now on red after 288 new cases on Wednesday took the rate of new cases across the city to 30.2 per 100,000 residents. Mitte has the highest rate over the last seven days, at 51.3 new infections. The two other "traffic lights" – the  city’s R number and the percentage of Covid patients in intensive care – are both on green. The hope is that newly announced extra rules will put the brakes on the resurgence.

Mixed reaction to new rules

Sebastian Czaja, head of the pro-business FDP wing in Berlin's city parliament, said the SPD-Left-Green Senat's new corona strategy had brought “renewed attacks on the basic rights” of Berliners – and that his party intended to investigate whether the measures are legal and constitutional. Ingo Kramer, head of the Confederation of German Employers' Associations, isn’t convinced either: “I’m not entirely clear on whether compulsory masks in the office will bring us more progress or if it’s just a bit of a placebo.” Our advice: better safe than sorry.

AKK shoots from the lip

Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, CDU boss and defence minister, has criticised Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg’s decision to refuse help from the German army in delivering corona testing, despite having one of Berlin’s highest rates of new cases. Across the rest of the city, 60 soldiers have been helping at testing centres or with contact tracing, and 180 more are set to join them. AKK told the Tagesspiegel she suspected “ideological reasons” for the decision, and said local bosses should be prepared “to answer for it when patients can’t be treated because there’s no ventilator beds left, children can’t go to school and maybe their parents lose their jobs”. Ouch.

In case you missed it...

With Covid cases climbing once again, new rules and official guidance are on the horizon - so we've set up a page which we'll keep updated with all the information you need to know, as soon as we get it. Bookmark and check back for regular updates.

That's all for now folks. Stay healthy!

Yours,

The Berliner Zeitung English team

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