The Latest: Germany passes over 15,000 virus deaths

BERLIN — Germany has passed the grim milestone of more than 15,000 deaths from the coronavirus.

The Robert Koch Institute, the country’s disease control center, said Thursday that another 389 deaths were recorded overnight, bringing the total since the start of the pandemic to 15,160.

Germany has seen 983,588 total cases of the coronavirus after adding 22,368 overnight, the agency said.

Germany embarked on a so-called “wave-breaker” shutdown on Nov. 2, closing restaurants, bars, sports and leisure facilities but leaving schools, shops and hair salons open.

It was initially slated to last four weeks but Chancellor Angela Merkel and the country’s 16 state governors agreed late Wednesday to extend it through Dec. 20 with a goal of pushing the number of new coronavirus cases in each region below 50 per 100,000 inhabitants per week. It’s currently at 140 per 100,000.

Merkel said that while existing measures have succeeded in halting an surge in new coronavirus infections, they have stabilized at a high level.

___

HERE’S WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE VIRUS OUTBREAK:

— Americans risk traveling over Thanksgiving despite warnings

— Congress braces for Biden’s national coronavirus strategy

— Pandemic gave locals fleeting taste of a tourist-free Hawaii

— To avoid any traces of the coronavirus that might be lurking on surfaces, Americans have been wiping down groceries, wearing surgical gloves in public and leaving mail packages out for an extra day or two. But experts say the national fixation on scrubbing can sometimes be overkill.

— California has reported a record number of coronavirus cases on the eve of Thanksgiving. More than 18,000 COVID-19 infections were reported Wednesday.

— Though the first real snow has yet to fall across much of...