The third wave of the pandemic of coronavirus appears to have been halted, the German health minister said today, Jens Span, as the restrictive measures and the acceleration of the vaccination campaign contributed to a reduction in the number of cases of covid-19.

“The trend of recent weeks is confirmed. The third wave seems to have been halted,” Spahn pointed out during his weekly briefing on pandemic management. “The number of cases has decreased again, but still remains at elevated levels,” he added.

For his part, the head of the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), Lotar Willer, noted that “since the end of April the number of cases has been slightly decreasing” in all age groups and expressed the hope that Germany would soon be able to bring covid-19 under control.

The rate of new infections “is not decreasing everywhere at the same speed, but it is decreasing”, explained Willer, pointing out that the behaviour of the Germans, who limited their social contacts, contributed significantly to the improvement of the image.

31.5% of the country's population (more than 26 million) has received a dose of covid-19 vaccine, while 900,000 were vaccinated yesterday (Thursday) alone, Spahn stressed. In addition, about 7.3 million Germans have received both doses.

In an effort to speed up the immunisation campaign, the German Health Minister announced that AstraZeneca's covid-19 vaccine will be given to all those who want it, reversing a previous decision restricting the use of this medicine in older adults because of the potential risk of thrombosis.

Spahn's announcement came after several federal states in Germany decided to allow all adults to get the AstraZeneca vaccine after consulting their doctor.

“We are convinced that this offer is attractive to those who would otherwise not be vaccinated so quickly,” explained Spahn, adding that 1 million doses of AstraZeneca will be delivered to clinics next week.

In total in Germany there have been 3,491,988 cases of covid-19 and almost 85,000 deaths.