Chancellor Angela Merkel has sounded the alarm over the return of a “certain recklessness” as Covid-19 infection and death rates climb in Germany, reports AFP.

Increasing numbers of hospital admissions with coronavirus “worry me a lot”, Merkel told Sunday's edition of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper.

“It should worry all of us,” she added, noting “again a certain recklessness” in Germany.

She defended the right not to be vaccinated but admitted to being “very saddened” that as many as three million Germans aged over 60 have still not had the jab.