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 a surge in new coronavirus infections, they have stabilized at a high level.
