Photo taken on March 31, 2020 shows facial masks made at a tailor shop in Cologne, Germany, March 31, 2020. Confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Germany increased by 4,615 within one day to 61,913, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) announced on Tuesday. (Photo by Ulrich Hufnagel/Xinhua)
BERLIN, March 31 (Xinhua) -- Confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Germany increased by 4,615 within one day to 61,913, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) announced on Tuesday.
The number of deaths in Germany increased to 583 on Tuesday from 455 a day earlier, according to RKI, a federal government agency and research institute responsible for disease control and prevention.
However, RKI president Lothar Wieler warned at a press conference that he assumed the "mortality rate will increase" in Germany.
According to RKI, the average age of people dying from the disease in Germany was 80 years, while the average age of infected people was 47 years. And the average number of cases per 100,000 inhabitants in Germany was 74, although there were "regional differences."
Wieler was "still optimistic," but it was important to keep looking at the figures and to wait until Easter to see how the pandemic would develop in the country.
Germany had a relatively high rate of intensive care beds per capita and the number was increasing, said Wieler.
The task was to make "optimal logistical" use of available hospital capacities and to allocate patients to hospitals where there was free capacity.
Whether Germany would have enough beds as the epidemic progresses "is another question," stressed Wieler.
Germany currently had a doubling of confirmed COVID-19 cases about every five days. The rate had to slow down to at least every ten days before restrictions could be eased, a government spokesperson said on Monday.
