German prosecutors have launched a criminal investigation into a hospital near Berlin that suffered from a severe coronavirus outbreak in March 2020.
The prosecutor’s office in the city of Potsdam said that the top doctors and then-executive leadership of the Ernst von Bergmann hospital were being investigated for negligent homicide and negligent bodily harm.
The hospital was linked to a coronavirus outbreak in March in which several dozen people died of COVID-19.
While local flare-ups have occurred, Germany has mostly kept the number of new infections in check even out of lockdown.
Health authorities in the morning of Monday, June 15 announced 192 new cases of coronavirus had been recorded since the day before.
It brings the total number of infections in Germany since the outbreak’s beginning to 186,461 according to Germany’s infectious disease body, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI).
The death toll rose by four during the previous 24 hours, bringing the total number of fatalities to 8,791.
A further 400 patients had recovered, bringing the total number of patients who have overcome the virus to 172,600, according to the RKI.
The RKI noted that daily figures may be amended after quality checks.
The reproduction rate, which measures the disease’s ability to spread, sat above the critical value of 1, to 1.05 on Monday, meaning each infected person is spreading the virus to around one other.
The day before, it was at 1.02.Â
