German health official urges people to get vaccinated

Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccination campaign in Weimar

BERLIN (Reuters) - People who are offered a COVID-19 vaccination should accept it to help curb the pandemic and relieve hospitals, the chief of Germany's Robert Koch health institute said on Thursday.

Hospitals in 10 out of 16 German states were facing bottlenecks as 85% of the beds in its intensive care units were used by coronavirus patients, Lothar Wieler told a news conference.

(Reporting by Kirsti Knolle; Editing by Riham Alkousaa)