The more infectious Delta coronavirus variant will become dominant in Germany by the autumn at the latest, the country's top public health official said, urging the public both to continue wearing masks indoors and to get vaccinated.

“The Delta variant makes up about six per cent of infections, but its share is growing,” Lothar Wieler, head of the Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases said, referring to the variant first identified in India.

“It is not a question of if Delta will become dominant but a question of when,” he added. “It will have the upper hand in the autumn at the latest.”

Germany's 16 states have started easing restrictions in place since November which, coupled with an accelerating vaccination campaign, had helped the country tame a third wave of coronavirus infections.