Germany records highest daily COVID-19 count in 3 months

A leaves a temporary testing centre for the novel coronavirus in Ripollet, Spain, on Thursday. Pic/afp

Germany will require people arriving from countries deemed high risk, such as the United States, to take coronavirus tests starting this weekend, the health minister said Thursday, as the country recorded its highest daily tally of new infections in three months.

German officials have voiced alarm over a steady upward creep in the new infections over recent weeks. The national disease control centre, the Robert Koch Institute, said 1,045 cases were recorded on Wednesday - the first time since May 7 that it has counted more than 1,000 new cases in a day.

Daily figures can be volatile or distorted by delays in reporting, and the number is still far short of the peak of more than 6,000 reached in early April. Germany's COVID-19 response so far is widely regarded as relatively successful. The Robert Koch Institute has recorded 9,175 deaths from over 2,13,000 cases a lower death rate than in many comparable countries.

School holidays are ending in some regions, increasing concerns that vacationers could bring home the virus.

Last Saturday, the government started offering free tests for people returning to the country, a move that Spahn said likely contributed to the increase in cases. The rate of travelers testing positive is up to twice as high as the average for tests in Germany, he said.

Over 2.5L thrown out of work in a day in Melbourne

With Victoria state under a strict lockdown, more than 2,50,000 people were thrown out of work in Australia's second-largest city on Thursday. Melbourne usually accounts for a quarter of Australia's economic activity. Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the lockdown was expected to cost the national economy up to 9 billion Australian dollars in the September quarter.

FB deletes Trump post with false virus claims

Facebook, for the first time, has removed a video post from US President Donald Trump in which he claimed that children were "almost immune" to COVID-19, saying it violated its policy against spreading "misinformation" about the novel coronavirus.

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