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 Tuesday, 1 December)
New cases in one day: 1,161 (925 Monday)
Total number of corona deaths: 594 (+29 over Monday)
🟢 R number: 0.88 (0.80 Monday)
🔴 New infections per week: 194,0 / 100,000 inhabitants (206,9 Monday)
🟡 Share of Berlin ICUs occupied by Covid-19 patients: 24.5 per cent (24.2 per cent Sunday)
Meistgelesene Artikel
Source: Berlin's coronavirus status page
The lowdown...
Highest deaths
Germany Monday set a new record in deaths per day after 487 people died from corona. The climb isn't surprising considering the strong increase in cases in November. In Berlin, at least, the average patient age is climbing and the number of cases in care homes has doubled in as many weeks to 2,050 from 1,021 two weeks ago, according to Tagesspiegel. About 1,000 caregivers are also sick, up from 605 on 16 November.
Club commission envisions testing network
After the legendary KitKat Club announced it would begin providing quick Covid-19 antigen tests Friday, the Club Commission, a lobbying group for Berlin nightlife, told newswire dpa it could imagine using clubs, prohibited from opening, as testing centres. Visitors could ensure they are corona-free before meeting with relatives or friends. The centres would be connected digitally so that, eventually, restaurants, bars or clubs could verify negative results - assuming politicians allow hospitality businesses to reopen.
Quick tests for schools, too
Speaking of quick tests: Education officials are creating eight mobile testing stations for rapid identification of outbreaks among educators in Berlin schools and daycares. The eight stations can perform up to 200 quick tests a day - if they have enough personnel. Although the rapid tests, which look for antibodies in the blood, are fairly simple to administer, federal law requires medical personnel to administer them.
No Berlinale, says culture minister
Klaus Lederer, Berlin's top cultural official, Tuesday said he can't imagine movie theatres re-opening in time for the Berlinale in February, despite festival officials earlier promising the festival would go on. Lederer said the city's theatres want to open mid-January and movie theatres 1 February. Fat chance, he said. But in German and not quite so confrontational.
In case you missed it...
Seems like a perfect moment to take a look at an earlier interview with Berlinale managing director Mariette Rissenbeek and artistic director Carlo Chatrian.
That's all for now, folks. Stay safe!
Yours,
The Berliner Zeitung English team
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