Das Erste

The number of coronavirus cases in Germany grew 20% in the past week, as lockdown restrictions are gradually eased, an expert at the Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases (RKI) said Tuesday.

RKI epidemiologist Dirk Brockmann told German broadcaster ARD that the loosening of measures was particularly unhelpful given the exponential growth of the British virus variant B117. And since they're also combined with descriptive terms, the possibilities of creating new words are endless: "hard" and "light" were the most popular, but "yo-yo," referring to ever-changing lockdown rules, was another one, as well as "Flockdown," when heavy snow ("Flocken"=flakes) keeps everyone inside anyway.

In the context of fake news and an increase in attacks on journalists, the TV broadcaster ARD was able to report positive news: In January 2021, the news program achieved the highest monthly audience ratings since the measurement began with a market share of 42 percent. Within about a year, the previous record from March 2020 was surpassed again.