Germany’s health minister, Jens Spahn, has defended the decision to bar unvaccinated people from many areas of public life.
“We should have displayed this consistency in our treatment of unvaccinated people at a much earlier stage”, said Spahn.
Spahn is due to hand over his job to a successor from the new government next Wednesday.
Spahn warned that the number of Covid-19 patients on intensive care wards would “significantly rise” above the 5,000 mark in the coming weeks and months.
On Thursday, the German government and heads of the federal states agreed that only those who have been vaccinated or recently recovered from Covid should be allowed in restaurants, cinemas, leisure facilities and many shops, and mooted introducing a general vaccine mandate from February.
On Friday morning, 4,793 patients suffering from the disease are lying on intensive care beds at hospitals around Germany.
Germany has announced record coronavirus fatalities and infections as its total death toll passed 100,000.
Another 351 people have died from coronavirus, bringing the total since the start of the pandemic to 100,119.
The number of new daily cases hit a new record of 75,961.
The surge in infections poses a real challenge for the new-elected government.
Many European countries have seen an increase in cases recently driven by the Delta variant of the virus, including Russia, Ukraine, Germany, and Poland.
Earlier last month, German MPs voted in favour of a new set of measures to fight the pandemic.
