BERLIN - The number of coronavirus
patients in Germany jumped to 684 on Saturday, with concern
growing at the economic impact of the spreading epidemic on one
of the world's most trade-dependent economies.
The number of patients recorded by the Robert Koch Institute
had risen by 45, with large clusters in the west and south,
where one initial outbreak centred on a car supplier with a unit
in Wuhan, where the infection was first detected.
The total is more than 10 times larger than it was a week
ago. There were 66 cases in Feb. 29.
Western Europe's most populous country, Germany has the
second largest number of registered cases on the continent after
Italy.
So far, no deaths have been reported, though the RND
newspaper group reported that a transplant patient with a
depressed immune system and who had contracted coronavirus was
in a critical condition.
With concern growing at the vulnerability of long
international supply chains to such an epidemic, Ola Kallenius,
chief executive of Mercedes maker Daimler, warned
against a return to economic nationalism.
"These events show how fragile global supply chains are," he
told Der Spiegel magazine. "But a world without global work
sharing would be less successful ... We should protect (that
success) while checking for vulnerabilities where we can bring
more security into the supply chain."
He said the carmaker was "gradually ramping up" production
again in China after the Chinese New Year stoppage that had been
further lengthened by coronavirus. But the disease would have an
impact on company results.
"We can't yet say what the impact will be, but it is clear
that both production and sales will be affected," he added.
Lufthansa, Europe's largest airline group by fleet
size, on Friday announced that it was slashing by half the
number of flights it would operate in coming weeks as a result
of the sudden slackening in demand.
While the government has so far resisted calls for direct
economic stimulus to counter the effects of the slowdown, saying
only that it has the resources to do so if necessary, more
targeted measures are being contemplated.
Handelsblatt newspaper reported that the parties in
Chancellor Angela Merkel's coalition were discussing ways to
make it temporarily easier for companies to shorten employees'
working hours by letting them off some of the cost of social
security benefits.
And with panic buying triggering pictures of empty
supermarket shelves on social media, transport minister Andreas
Scheuer recommended that a ban on deliveries on Germany's
sacrosanct Sunday be lifted to ease restocking.
At a European health ministers summit on Friday, Health
Minister Jens Spahn advised against trips to affected regions
both abroad and at home, mentioning specifically the German
state of North Rhine Westphalia, where there are 346 cases.