German virologists fail to determine when and how a patient contracted the coronavirus in 80 percent of all cases, Germany's Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy Peter Altmaier said on Wednesday
BERLIN (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 28th October, 2020) German virologists fail to determine when and how a patient contracted the coronavirus in 80 percent of all cases, Germany's Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy Peter Altmaier said on Wednesday.
"I can only draw your attention to the fact that the Robert Koch Institute [subordinate to the German Ministry of Health], which is definitely and undeniably competent, points to that in 80 percent of the cases we do not know and cannot prove when the infection happened," Altmaier said at the German parliament.
Lawmakers asked the minister to address the calls by German food business owners not to shut them down during the new lockdown � a "mild" one, which the German government is expected to announce later in the day � as the majority of such businesses have ensured the proper implementation of the state-ordered preventive measures and neither has been involved in a new outbreak.
According to Altmaier, not shutting down food businesses during the lockdown in November will result in a 10-15 percent reduction in social contacts, whereas curbing Germany's current rate of infection will require "at least a 50-percent reduction."
The minister said the spread of the coronavirus in Germany has reached exponential growth, which means that the higher the toll, the faster it grows.
Over the past day, German health authorities registered the biggest increase yet in the number of new cases per day, totaling almost 15,000. Germany's cumulative toll has now reached 464,239 cases, including 10,183 deaths.
