COVID-19: Germany death toll nears 1,000

BERLIN (AA) - Germany’s coronavirus death toll neared 1,000 on Thursday, while total number of cases exceeded 80,000, according to statistics released by local authorities.

Die Zeit weekly, which compiles up-to-date numbers from nearly 400 local health authorities, reported that total deaths from coronavirus in Germany rose to 956 as of Thursday, and confirmed cases climbed to 80,120.

More than 13,000 people were reported to have recovered from the virus.

Meanwhile, German health authorities announced on Thursday significant progress in increasing number of beds in intensive care units, and their stock of ventilators.

Gerald Gass, the president of the German Hospital Federation, told local media that they have managed to increase the number of intensive care beds from 28,000 to nearly 40,000 in the last couple of weeks.

“Roughly 15,000 to 20,000 of them remain free,” he said in an interview with the Rheinische Post daily.

Number of ventilators were also increased from nearly 20,000 to 30,000.

Germany is the third worst-affected country by the coronavirus pandemic in Europe, but its death toll remained far lower than the two hardest-hit countries, Italy and Spain.

Italy's coronavirus death toll passed 13,000 on Wednesday, the highest globally. Spain has recorded 10,003 fatalities so far.

Germany is pursuing a strategy of widespread coronavirus testing and tested more than 830,000 people in the last three weeks.

According to a recent study by the Robert Koch Institute, most of those infected in Germany are younger and middle-aged.

Less than 20% of the infected are among the high-risk group of people age 60 and over.

After surfacing in Wuhan, China last December, the novel coronavirus has spread to at least 180 countries and regions.

The global death toll from COVID-19 has surpassed 48,300, with over 952,100 cases confirmed worldwide, according to U.S.-based Johns Hopkins University. Over 202,500 have recovered from the infection so far.