German air force to move ICU patients as COVID cases rise

BERLIN (AP) — The German air force will begin assisting the transfer of intensive care patients Friday as the country sees a new record number of daily coronavirus cases.

German news agency dpa reported that a Luftwaffe A310 medevac plane will fly seriously ill patients from the southern town of Memmingen to North Rhine-Westphalia state Friday afternoon.

Hospitals in southern and eastern regions of Germany have warned they are running out of intensive care beds because of the large number of seriously ill COVID-19 patients.

The country's disease control agency said 76,414 newly confirmed cases were reported in the past 24 hours. The Robert Koch Institute, a government agency, said Germany also had 357 new deaths from COVID-19, taking the total since the start of the outbreak to 100,476.

Also Friday, German Health Minister Jens Spahn said airlines coming from South Africa will only be able to transport German citizens, and travelers will need to go into quarantine for 14 days whether they are vaccinated or not.

Spahn said the move was a response to a newly discovered variant.

“The last thing we need is to bring in a new variant that will cause even more problems,” he said.

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