Germany has significantly reduced the rate of contagion, known as R, which shows how quickly the novel coronavirus is spreading, information provided by the Robert Koch Institute reveals.

The rate was around 0.9 on Wednesday, April 15 and went as far low as 0.7 on Thursday, meaning that each person with the virus infects another 0.7 people on average, Deutsche Welle reports.

In Germany, there were 2,945 new infections in the 24 hours through Friday, taking the total to 137,698, according to data From Johns Hopkins University.

The number of German fatalities, meanwhile, rose by 248, the smallest gain in three days, to 4,052, while 77,000 people have recovered from the disease.