Chancellor Angela Merkel takes off her face mask when she holds a press conference on the current situation amid the novel coronavirus / COVID-19 pandemic after a meeting with her so-called corona cabinet on November 2, 2020 in Berlin.
Kay Nietfeld | AFP | Getty Images
According to the GDP data published on Thursday for the full year (gross domestic product), the German economy contracted by 5% in 2020.
The preliminary numbers, which were slightly better than the 5.1% forecast, come from a year of economic turmoil for Germany and the rest of the world as the coronavirus pandemic disrupted businesses and large parts of the economy.
Coronavirus cases have resulted in several bans on public life and economic activity in Germany. Chancellor Angela Merkel announced last week that the last lockdown would be extended until the end of the month.
Amid mounting concerns over the spread of a more virulent variant of the virus, originally identified in the UK, German newspaper Bild reported earlier this week that Merkel had told a meeting of lawmakers from her Christian Democratic Union party that the current lockdown would last until Early April.
On Thursday, Germany reported more than 25,000 new cases of the coronavirus in the last 24 hours. The total number of cases was 1,978,590, according to data from the Robert Koch Institute.
