Germany's total coronavirus cases topped two million, as Chancellor Angela Merkel pushed for a “significant” tightening of restrictions to slow the infection rate.

The European Union's most populous country added another 22,368 new cases over the past 24 hours, Germany's Robert Koch Institute (RKI) health agency said, bringing the total since the start of the pandemic to 2,000,958.

It also reported another 1,113 Covid-19 fatalities, taking the overall death toll up to 44,994. The milestone comes hours after Merkel called for harsher curbs on public life to bring the outbreak under control.

At a meeting of senior members of her centre-right CDU party, the German Chancellor said she wanted to bring forward crisis talks with regional leaders to “the coming week”, participants told AFP.

They quoted her as saying the virus could only be stopped with “significant additional measures”.