Two German counties hit reported rate of zero coronavirus cases

Hanover, Germany (dpa) – Two German counties have reported zero cases of the coronavirus, a sign of success as the country fights to get the disease under control within its borders.

According to the Robert Koch Institute, the country’s infectious disease agency, both Goslar in the centre and Friesland in the north-west on Tuesday had an average of zero cases per 100,000 residents for the last seven days.

After that, the next best is the county of Vorpommern-Ruegen, in the north-east, with a rate of 1.3.

Nationwide, Germany has a rate of around 22.9 cases per 100,000 people over seven days. That’s a marked improvement from several weeks ago, when the number was routinely over 100 and individual districts had numbers around 300 or more.

However, the numbers are not infallible. Data sometimes takes a while to be crunched and can be out of date. Thus, while national health authorities say Goslar is at zero, the local health authority provides a number of 2.2, noting that there were no new cases reported on Tuesday, but 28 active cases it is tracking.

But in Friesland, county official Sven Ambrosy said the low number was attributable to thorough contact-tracing. “For months, we’ve had relatively low and stable incidence numbers here in Friesland, which has been falling the last few days.”

A third wave of infections has been abating in Germany amid rising numbers of vaccinations, which became open to everyone aged 12 and up on Monday.

The country is pushing to get the numbers under control before nationwide lockdown rules expire at the end of the month, but there are fears a fourth wave could return after the summer.