Germany’s coronavirus cases hit 2M

BERLIN (AA) - Coronavirus cases in Germany have officially passed the 2 million mark on Friday as the second wave continues to surge across the country.

The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) reported 22,368 new infections and 1,113 deaths in the past 24 hours, above the seven-day average of cases and fatalities.

These brought the country’s total number of fatalities to 44,994 and confirmed infections to 2 million since the start of the pandemic a year ago.

Germany hit the one million mark in November last year, and doubled its number in just seven weeks, showing the severity of the second wave of COVID-19.

Health authorities recently detected more contagious UK and South Africa variants of the virus in Germany, but it was not clear whether the recent surge in numbers were linked to these mutations.