The German air force is to help transfer intensive care patients as the country sees a record number of daily coronavirus cases.
German news agency dpa reported that a Luftwaffe A310 medevac plane will fly seriously ill patients from the southern town of Memmingen to North Rhine-Westphalia state on Friday afternoon.
Hospitals in southern and eastern regions of Germany have warned they are running out of intensive care beds because of the large number of seriously ill Covid-19 patients.
The country’s disease control agency said 76,414 newly confirmed cases were reported in the past 24 hours.
The Robert Koch Institute said Germany also had 357 deaths from Covid-19, taking the total since the start of the outbreak to 100,476.
Also on Friday, German Health Minister Jens Spahn said airlines coming from South Africa will only be able to carry German citizens, and travellers will need to go into quarantine for 14 days whether they are vaccinated or not.
Mr Spahn said the move was a response to a newly discovered variant.
“The last thing we need is to bring in a new variant that will cause even more problems,” he said.
