BERLIN, April 17 -- The rate of new infections with COVID-19 in Germany slightly picked up but remained below peak times as the number of confirmed cases increased by 3,380 within one day to 133,830, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) announced on Friday.
"The outbreak has, as of today, become controllable and more manageable again," said German Health Minister Jens Spahn at the RKI press conference on Friday.
"We have managed to bring back the dynamic growth to a linear growth," stressed Spahn. "The number of infections has decreased considerably, in particular the relative increases from day to day."
RKI president Lothar Wieler said that Germany had achieved a "really good interim result."
The infection rate of COVID-19 in Germany was currently at 0.7 which means that "on average, not every person who is infected is now infecting another person", explained Wieler.
The estimated number of people in Germany who had already recovered from COVID-19 went up by around 4,700 within one day to 81,800 on Friday, according to RKI.
The death toll from the novel coronavirus in Germany increased by 299 to 3,868 on Friday. According to RKI, the fatality rate among confirmed COVID-19 cases was at 2.9 percent in Germany.