Germany says a “third wave” of Covid has begun; Italy has set for the closing of Easter

LONDON – The head of Germany’s public health agency warned on Friday that a third wave of coronavirus infections had already begun.

It comes at a time when the country has begun to gradually relax blocking restrictions, amid a government effort to speed up its vaccination to as many adults as possible.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has previously warned that the country could be caught in a third wave of infections if restrictive public health measures were lifted too quickly.

Meanwhile, Italy should impose another near-national blockade over the Easter weekend in an effort to reduce the spread of the virus.

The measure, which is expected to be signed into law on Friday, comes just over a year after it became the first country in the world to impose nationwide blocking measures.

“We have clear signs: the third wave in Germany has already begun,” Lothar Wieler, head of the Robert Koch Institute for Infectious Diseases, told reporters at a news conference.

“The virus will not go away, but once we have a basic level of immunity in the population, we can control it,” he added.

Wieler said he was “very concerned” about the public health crisis. He described Germany’s vaccination campaign as a race against a growing virus, but expressed confidence that the country would eventually be able to control the virus.

Until such a time, Wieler reaffirmed the importance of people wearing face masks in public and maintaining a safe distance from others.

RKI said on Thursday that the number of confirmed Covid cases over a 24-hour period had risen by 14,356, the highest daily number in Germany in two weeks. It reflected an increase of 2,444 cases compared to the previous week.

The recent rise coincides with the spread of an extremely infectious variant of the virus first discovered in the UK. It was found that the variant, known as B.1.1.7, represents over 46% of new infections nationwide.

To date, more than 2.5 million people have contracted Covid in Germany, with 73,127 deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

The administration of Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi has held talks with regional governments and local authorities to discuss imposing tougher health measures from March 15 to April 6, Italian news agency ANSA reported on Friday, citing unnamed sources.

As part of these measures, Italy expects to address the spread of the virus by placing almost the entire country in the so-called “red zone” from April 3 to April 5, a period that includes Easter Sunday and Easter Monday.

The red zone is the maximum level of restrictions in the coronavirus system with levels in Italy. At this level, schools, non-essential shops, restaurants and bars will be closed.

Sardinia, a large Italian island in the Mediterranean, is currently the only region in the white area of ​​the country. This decision, announced on March 1, means that many measures to limit the spread of the virus have been abandoned in this area.

Nationally, the total number of Covid infections in Italy exceeded 3 million last week, largely due to the rapid spread of variant B.1.1.7. To date, Italy has recorded 3.1 million Covid cases and 101,184 deaths.