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, 15 December)
New cases in one day: 1,129 (1,008 Monday)
Total number of corona deaths: 899 (+53 over Monday)
🟢 R number: 0.94 (1.02 Monday)
🔴 New infections per week: 200.6/ 100,000 inhabitants (197.5 Monday)
🔴 Share of Berlin ICUs occupied by Covid-19 patients: 28 per cent (27.4 per cent Monday)
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Source: Berlin's coronavirus status page
The lowdown...
Record deaths in Germany
Evidently, Germany's "lockdown light" was balefully inadequate to halt the spread of coronavirus. On Wednesday morning the Robert Koch Institute said an all-time high of 952 Covid-19-related deaths had been recorded in a 24-hour period. The previous record was set last Friday, when 592 deaths were registered at Germany's infectious diease institute.
"Normality" in summer 2021?
With European approval of the Pfizer/Biontech corona vaccine expected on Monday, 21 December, vaccinations could begin before New Year's Eve. Health minister Jens Spahn (CDU) expects 11-13 million people to have been immunised in Germany by the end of March 2021. "Beginning in the summer, we will be able to return to normality bit by bit," Spahn said, but added that hygiene measures and rules will have to remain in place well into next year.
Glühwein is the new toilet paper
A colleague at Berliner Zeitung has been scouring supermarkets for bottles of ready-made Glühwein - mulled wine - and found that shelves had been ransacked of the comforting winter bevvy. All he could find was an organic variety with chokeberry flavour. Maybe just make your own at home. It'll be tastier anyway. Here's an easy recipe in English!
In case you missed it...
Speaking of DIY, growing cannabis at home seems to be popular in the pandemic. We talked to some enthusiasts.
That's all for now, folks. Stay safe!
Yours,
The Berliner Zeitung English team
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