Germany is now engulfed by a third wave of COVID-19 infections, which is being driven mainly by the more infectious SARS-CoV-2 variant called B.1.1.7.
"We have clear signs the third wave in Germany has already begun," said Prof Dr Lothar Wieler, president of the Robert Koch Institute for Infectious Diseases in Berlin.
"I am very worried," he said, and pointed out the number of cases with more contagious variants such as B.1.1.7, or the British variant, and the South African variant also known as 501Y.V2 are on the rise.
He said Germany's ongoing vaccination campaign is a race against a changing and mutating virus becoming more infectious and deadlier. Wieler said he was "very worried" about the public health crisis in Germany being fueled by the pandemic but remains confident the country will ultimately be able to bring the third wave under control.
"The virus is not going to disappear, but once we have a base level of immunity in the population, we can control it," he emphasized.
Until the third wave wanes, Wieler urged his fellow German to keep wearing face masks in public and maintain a safe distance from others.
Wieler has cause for concern. On Wednesday, Germany reported its highest daily tally of COVID-19 cases since January even as the country began gradually easing lockdown restrictions imposed over the past few months.
Total new cases on March 10 skyrocketed to 21,163 compared to 6,834 the day before based on Johns Hopkins data as compiled by Google. There were 4,745 cases Thursday, 12,770 cases Friday and 10,568 cases Saturday.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has kept warning Germany might be caught in a third wave if its restrictive public health measures were lifted too quickly.
To date, 2.6 million Germans have come down with COVID-19 while a further 74,000 have lost their lives to the disease, according to Worldometer data.
Disquiet over the danger presented by B.1.1.7 began to increase in mid-February when RKI reported the variant was on track to becoming the dominant strain in Germany over the next few months. B.1.1.7 is up to 70% more infectious than the parent strain from which it sprang.
RKI reported the proportion of B.1.1.7 in positive test samples rose from just under six percent to more than 22% in only two weeks.
RKI and other medical laboratories analyzed more than 23,000 positive PCR tests and sequenced the samples by mid-February in a bid to find out how fast the variants are spreading.
"The mutation that was first discovered in the UK is particularly worrying... We have to expect that it will now become the dominant variant here," said Federal Minister of Health Jens Spahn at the time.
He said the proportion of cases with B.1.1.7 was "doubling every week."
