Germany reports more than 172,000 COVID-19 cases

New COVID-19 infections in Germany remain under last week's daily average, as the number of confirmed cases increased by 933 within one day to 172,239, the country's pandemic response agency announced on Thursday.

Over the course of last week, an average of 960 daily cases had been reported in Germany by the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), the federal government agency for disease control and prevention.

The reproduction rate of COVID-19 in Germany further decreased to 0.81, according to the RKI's daily report for Wednesday.

The RKI noted that the reproduction rate in Germany was currently subject to fluctuations because individual outbreaks had a greater influence than in the case of higher infection numbers.

On Wednesday, Germany's Ministry of the Interior (BMI) announced that the development of infections would allow "cautious easing of border controls." Borders between Germany with France, Austria and Switzerland would be fully opened by June 15, according to the BMI.

"Four countries in the core of Europe are acting in the same direction, the aim behind this is to have free travel in Europe again by mid-June, if the infection situation permits," said German Minister of the Interior Horst Seehofer.

According to the RKI, the number of COVID-19 deaths in Germany increased by 89 to 7,723 on Thursday, resulting in a fatality rate of 4.5 percent.

The estimated number of people in Germany who had already recovered from COVID-19 increased by around 1,600 within one day to 150,300 on Thursday, according to the RKI. Since the start of testing in Germany until last week, more than 3.1 million laboratory tests had been conducted and evaluated in the country.