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EDITOR IN CHIEF- ABDULLAH BIN SALIM AL SHUEILI

Booster drive covers half of Germans

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Berlin: More than half of the population of Germany has received a booster vaccination against the coronavirus, the country's disease control agency said on Thursday, as the nation seeks to bolster its defences against Omicron.


About 43 million people, or 51.7 per cent of the population, have been boosted, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) reported, noting that the jabs offered significant protection against the highly transmissible new variant.


The landmark moment in the vaccination campaign came as records were set yet again in coronavirus infections.


The seven-day incidence, which records the average number of infections per 100,000 people over a week, exceeded 1,000 for the first time in the pandemic.


The rate increased to a 1,017.4 from 940.6 on Wednesday, the RKI said, while noting that 203,136 new coronavirus infections had been registered in 24 hours - another all-time high.


Germany's first coronavirus infection was confirmed exactly two years ago in a man from Bavaria on January 27, 2020.


Since then, the country has registered more than 9 million infections and more than 117,000 people have died from or with a coronavirus infection.


The rise of Omicron, which usually leads to a milder case of the disease, has caused the number of infections to explode in recent weeks and led to staff shortages in the medical sector.


Germany first started vaccinating people at the end of December 2020.


Since then, at least 62.9 million people have been vaccinated at least once. That is 75.6 per cent of the population. The government is aiming to get that figure to 80 per cent by the end of January - however, the goal appears out of reach.


According to the RKI, at least 73.7 per cent of the population have received full "basic protection." Currently, 24.4 per cent of the population are not vaccinated. For 4.8 per cent of these people, aged 0 to 4 years, there is no approved vaccine available. --ONA


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