German economy forecast to lag eurozone growth until 2026
The German economy is expected to significantly underperform the eurozone average until at least 2026, according to the European Commission's Autumn Forecast released on Friday.
The Delta variant is expected to become the dominant Covid-19 strain in Germany with its share of positive cases approaching 80 per cent, Health Minister Jens Spahn said.
The share of new Covid-19 infections caused by the more infectious Delta variant has already more than doubled since last week and currently stands at 37 per cent, according to the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), the federal agency and research institute responsible for disease control and prevention.
The German government would likely be able to keep its promise to vaccinate the entire adult population by the end of summer, Xinhua news agency quoted the Minister as saying to reporters on Thursday.
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The more people receive their second vaccine dose, the higher the level of protection will be against the Delta variant, he added.
Till date, almost 31 million people in Germany have already been fully vaccinated, bringing the country’s vaccination rate to 37.3 per cent, according to the RKI.
Spahn urged his non-vaccinated compatriots to get tested regularly.
“This is another important difference from last year, we have tests available on a large scale,” he said.
Meanwhile, the number of daily Covid-19 infections is continuing to fall as 892 new cases were registered within 24 hours on Thursday, 116 less than one week ago, the RKI said.
To date, 3,736,959 cases have been officially registered in Germany since the onset of the pandemic early last year.
The death toll stood at 90,938, according to the RKI.
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