Coronavirus: Germany went into lockdown 'too late'

Germany is preparing to extend its nationwide lockdown until the end of January as cases of coronavirus continue to rise.

But the director of the department of infectious diseases at Hanover University has said the country had gone into lockdown too late.

Prof Tobias Welte told BBC World News that Germany had been "lucky" in dealing with the first wave of the virus because it arrived later than in the southern European countries.

The new strain of coronavirus, first detected in the UK, was not yet a major problem in continental Europe, he said.

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