The situation is dramatically serious," the CDU politician told reporters gathered in Berlin on Friday. "More serious than at any other time in this pandemic."

Calling the current situation in Germany a 'national emergency', Spahn claimed that the incoming government was doing too little, too late to try and stem the tide. "We must stop this wave now," he warned.

On Friday, the weekly incidence of Covid infections hit yet another new peak of 438 infections per 100,000 people, while the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) reported a record-breaking 76,000 new infections within a day. In the worst-hit region of Saxony, the 7-day incidence recently topped 1,000 per 100,000 people.

In the meantime, weekly hospitalisations have been edging up and now stand at 5.97 per 100,000 people nationally. The daily Covid death toll hit 357 on Friday, bringing the total number of deaths since the start of the pandemic to 100,476.  

Criticising politicians who he said had underestimated the scale of the crisis, Spahn warned that the Covid wave would "continue to move west and north" from the regions in the south and east of Germany that have been badly affected so far.