Coronavirus pandemic not over, German health minister warns

BERLIN (AP) — Germany’s health minister warned Friday that the coronavirus pandemic isn’t over yet, noting that the country is still seeing record infections and high numbers of deaths. The Robert Koch Institute, Germany’s disease control agency, reported 210,743 newly confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 226 deaths in the past 24 hours. Officials say laboratory data suggests there may be a large number of undetected cases. Health Minister Karl Lauterbach said a subtype of the omicron variant, dubbed BA.2, could lead to a further rise in cases. Lauterbach urged Germany’s 16 states not to relax restrictions faster than recently agreed.