Germany has reported a new record of more than 76,000 Covid-19 infections in a day as its air force gets ready for the first time in the pandemic to fly severely ill patients to other parts of the country to unburden struggling hospitals.

It is the first time that the air force has to use its so-called "flying intensive care units", planes fitted with up to six ICU beds, to transfer Covid-19 patients within Germany.

Berlin will also declare South Africa a virus variant area later in the day after the detection of a new Covid-19 variant there, a health ministry source said.

Read more from Reuters here.

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