“The situation remains very strained,” Lothar Wieler, president of the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), told reporters in Berlin.

While the return of nationwide restrictions in early November has stabilized the numbers, Wieler warned that they were still too high.

“They are not falling noticeably,” he added.

German health authorities are overwhelmed and remain unable to track chains of infection, a key strategy in controlling the pandemic that has become impossible in recent weeks.

Wieler also pointed to the growing number of Covid-19 outbreaks in care homes and said that hospitals in some regions were reaching their limits.

He called on the public to keep their distance from one another and wear masks, if not for themselves then for the older generation.

“You protect yourself but you also protect others, and you do it for granny and granddad,” the official said.

The RKI, Germany’s national disease control agency, on Thursday reported 22,046 new cases of coronavirus infection, which was slightly lower than the number reported last Thursday.

The death toll rose by 479 to reach 17,602, according to the agency.

Germany has counted over 1.1 million cases so far in the pandemic.

Restaurants, bars and leisure facilities were closed on November 2 in a bid to control the spread, and a two-household limit imposed on gatherings.

This partial lockdown is to be extended until January 10, following a meeting with Chancellor Angela Merkel and state premiers on Wednesday.

Some areas with particularly high infection rates have introduced even tougher measures, such as in the Bavarian city of Nuremberg and numerous districts in the eastern state of Saxony, where people have been ordered not to leave their homes without good reason.