Germany is sliding into a new “critical” health situation with coronavirus cases soaring to new records, AFP quotes the country's health minister as saying, as he pleaded with vaccine holdouts to get jabbed.

“I often read that the Omicron variant is less virulent. That's only partially true,” said Karl Lauterbach at a press conference, stressing that 249 people died from the disease on Thursday alone.

“Germany is in a critical situation,” he said, warning that intensive care services could get overwhelmed and cases of so-called long Covid could grow.