Difficult months ahead in Germany

BERLIN — The German government says the country faces difficult months ahead, despite the upcoming arrival of a coronavirus vaccine.

Official figures Friday show 33,777 newly confirmed cases of coronavirus and 813 additional deaths in the past day.

Government spokesman Steffen Seibert says the expected regulatory approval of a vaccine “naturally gives us hope, but obviously it won’t solve the problem.”

He says January and February will be the “hardest that we have in this pandemic.”

Germany had contained the coronavirus early in the pandemic before a recent surge. There have been 1.4 million confirmed cases (12th highest in the world) and more than 25,000 confirmed deaths (14th), according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.