Germany needs to speed up a slowing vaccination campaign to avoid overwhelming its health care system, Reuters quoted Chancellor Angela Merkel as saying on Tuesday after talks with leaders of the country's 16 states on containing Covid-19.

“The bad news is that the vaccination rate has lost pace substantially,” Merkel told a news conference after the talks. “I hope it will pick up pace again after the (summer) holidays.”

Merkel said that starting Oct 11, Germany would end subsidies for free coronavirus tests and would require people to be either vaccinated, test negative or have a coronavirus recovery certificate to be able to visit places like restaurants, care homes and fitness centres.