Germany Weighs Longer COVID Lockdown Amid 'Exponential' Rise - FARS

 (FNA)- Germany may not be able to relax lockdown measures in the run-up to Easter, the country's health minister said on Friday.

Jens Spahn made his comments as Germany's Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases warned that case numbers were rising at a "very clearly exponential rate", DW reported.

"The rising case numbers may mean that we are unable to take any further steps towards opening up in the weeks to come. On the contrary we may even have to take steps backwards," Spahn said.

Health authorities say highly contagious variants have driven up case numbers in the EU's biggest country, which is entering a third wave of the disease.