Chancellor Angela Merkel is deeply worried about sharply rising new coronavirus infections in Germany, her spokesman said, urging citizens to keep to strict hygiene measures including masks if social distances cannot be maintained.

“The development of infection numbers is of great concern to us,” Steffen Seibert said. “We can see from some of our European friends where that could lead.”

In a meeting with her CDU party's top brass, Merkel had warned that new infection numbers — currently at around 2,000 a day — could leap to 19,200 daily by Christmas if the trend “continues in this way”, party sources told AFP.