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Evening Standard
Evening Standard
World
Luke O'Reilly

Senior Angela Merkel ally warns there is a second wave of coronavirus in Germany

Visitors enjoy warm weather in Mauerpark in Berlin (Picture: Getty Images)

Germany is already experiencing its second wave of coronavirus, a senior ally of Chancellor Angela Merkel has said.

Christian Democrat Michael Kretschmer, who is the Premier of Saxony, warned that the second wave is "taking place every day".

The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany increased by 340 to 205,609 on Monday, data from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases showed.

The reported deaths remained unchanged at 9,118.

Travellers enter the new Corona Test Centre at Duesseldorf Airport (REUTERS)

Mr Kretschmer told the Rheinische Post newspaper that there are new clusters every day that could become "very high numbers".

He said: "The second wave of coronavirus is already here.

"It is already taking place every day. We have new clusters of infections every day which could become very high numbers."

It comes as Ms Merkel's chief of staff said health ministers would discuss on Monday the possibility of obliging returning holidaymakers to take a coronavirus test as he expressed concern about a rise in infections in Germany.

"I think that we'll find a solution relatively quickly," Helge Braun told reporters, adding that it was necessary to act now to bring infection numbers down, since it would be harder to control the disease's spread in autumn and winter.

On Friday, the country's health minister Jens Spahn and his regional counterparts from Germany's 16 federal states agreed that authorities would offer returning holidaymakers free voluntary tests that, if negative, would excuse returnees from going into mandatory quarantine.

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