Germany recorded on Saturday the highest number of coronavirus infections since the middle of May.
It reached the threshold of 100 cases per 100,000 in the past week, which is the measure for imposing a lockdown.
However, Germany’s Health Minister, Jens Spahn, noted that the country can cope better now due to an abundance of vaccines.
He said restrictions including wearing masks and limited indoor activity for unvaccinated people would remain until spring.
The week-long infection case rate rose from 95 on Friday to 100 on Saturday, according to the Robert Koch Institute.
The institution reported 15,145 new cases on Saturday, which is 4,196 more than the week before.
It added that another 86 people died, which brings the total number of deaths to 95,077.
This rise comes after the 16 German states’ leaders discussed how to continue upon ending the emergency state on November 25.
This means the restrictions will expire automatically unless they are reimposed by a parliament’s vote.
Spahn said that it should be possible to remove the emergency state while still keeping some rules.
The rules include wearing masks, proof of vaccination or recovery, or a negative test result.
“We can obviously deal with higher incidences, higher numbers of infections better, much better without overburdening the health system,”
That’s because so many people took the vaccine, Spahn told Deutschlandfunk radio.
“This path from a state of emergency to a state of special caution to a state of normality,” he added.
However, he warned that parts of Germany with low vaccine rates are already having pressure in hospitals.
Nearly 66% of German residents took full vaccination, compared to 63.3% across the EU.
