The German health minister foresees that almost all his compatriots will be personally affected by the coronavirus. “Probably almost everyone in Germany will be vaccinated, cured or dead before the end of winter, as is sometimes said cynically,” predicts Minister Jens Spahn.

According to him, this is due to the “highly contagious Delta variant”.

Like the Netherlands, Germany is trying to control a rapid increase in the number of corona infections. This increases the pressure on healthcare. “We have a very, very difficult situation in many hospitals,” said Spahn, who asked Germans especially to get vaccinated.

So far, about 68 percent of Germans have been fully vaccinated against the coronavirus.

The German health institute RKI, the counterpart of the Dutch RIVM, reported more than 30,000 new corona infections on Monday. They were registered in the past day.

Since the start of the pandemic, about 5.3 million infections have been detected in Germany, with a population of 83 million, and nearly 100,000 corona patients have died.