BERLIN Latest figures which show the spread of the coronavirus is slowing in Germany are a cause for “hope”, Chancellor Angela Merkel said Friday, but warned that it was too early to relax restrictions on public life. Germany has shut schools, banned public gatherings of more than two and imposed requirements for people to keep a distance of at least 1.5 metres (five feet). The measures have helped to slow the spread of the virus, experts said. “It’s true that the latest figures, as high as they are, give us a little bit of hope, as the growth in new infections is slower than it was a few days ago,” said Merkel in an official podcast. “But it is definitely much too early to see a clear trend in that, and it is certainly too early to think in any way about relaxing the strict rules we have given ourselves,” she added.The number of infections was still climbing, and approached 80,000 on Friday. The curbs aimed at keeping Germans home are officially in place until April 19 and Merkel said it would be be “irresponsible” to commit to a fixed end date. “If I were to disappoint the hopes awoken by such a promise, then we would be out of the frying pan and into the fire — medically, economically and socially,” she said. Earlier Friday, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for disease control announced that measures to slow the spread of the coronavirus are starting to show effect. “We are seeing that the spread of the virus is getting slower… it’s working,” said RKI president Lothar Wieler. Wieler explained that each person who had caught the virus was now infecting only one person on average, where previously that number had been as high as seven.–AFP
