Wednesday's Berlin corona news in 60 seconds

+++ No jabs for kids +++ Indian variant +++ UK travel ban +++ The stats +++

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Prost!Markus Wächter

The latest corona stats for Berlin (tallied Wednesday, 26 May)

Berliners vaccinated with one vaccine dose: 38.1 per cent (stat from Tuesday. Get your act together Impfdashboard.de!)

New cases in one day: +231 (+76 Tuesday) 

Total number of corona deaths: 3,454 (+14)

🟢 R number: 0.80 (0.91 Tuesday)

🔴 New infections per week: 39.3/100,000  inhabitants (46.5 Tuesday)

🟡 Share of Berlin ICUs occupied by Covid-19 patients: 15.5 per cent (16 per cent Tuesday)

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Sources: Berlin's coronavirus status page, impfdashboard.de

The latest news

No jabs for kids for now

Germany's vaccine commission, the Stiko, said it wasn't ready to rubberstamp vaccinations for children just yet - with the exception of kids aged 12-15 suffering from certain chronic illnesses. The Stiko said the data on kids was unsatisfactory. German health minister Jens Spahn (CDU) wants the majority of teens to be vaxxed by the time school resumes after the summer break, but the European Medicines Agency has yet to approve any corona vaccines for under 16s. A decision on Biotech/Pfizer is expected by the end of the month. 

Drosten warns of "Indian variant" 

Charité virologist Christian Drosten urged Germans to get vaccinated to boost protection against the B.1.617 variant of the coronavirus, first discovered in India. Speaking on the NDR-Info Coronavirus Update podcast, he said the variant was up to 50 per cent more infectious. On Sunday, Germany barred travel from the UK for all apart from German citizens and residents - to prevent the spread of variants.

In case you missed it ...

With Berlin slowly opening up, clubbers could soon be up against stony-faced Berghain bouncer Sven Marquardt again - parodied in the delightful music video "Let the right ones in". We talked to the woman behind the song, Rachel Glassberg.

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