Berlin — German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier has called on the public to restrict contacts as the country grapples with its fourth wave of Covid-19 infections, while authorities confirmed on Sunday Germany's third case of the worrying new Omicron variant.

"It is important that we all act together now," Steinmeier wrote in an editorial for the Bild am Sonntag newspaper. "Let's stick to the rules, let's reduce our contacts once again. Let's do it so that schools and childcare centres don't close again, so that we don't have to completely shut down public life again."

His comments came a day after the German health authorities announced a record number of Covid-19 cases. Hospital wards in some states are at capacity, with patients being transferred across the country.

In Bavaria, one of the worst-affected states, a special air force flight left Munich airport amid snowdrifts on Sunday, carrying five seriously ill patients to Hamburg. From there, they are to be taken to the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein for further intensive care.

Since Friday, an overall 50 seriously ill Covid-19 patients have been moved to less overwhelmed states, according to a government official, in what was described as the country's biggest operation to move people in intensive care.

Besides Bavaria, the states of Saxony and Thuringia are also particularly badly affected by the current Covid-19 wave.

Meanwhile, hospitals are increasingly postponing elective surgery to deal with Covid-19 cases. Regular, scheduled operations are no longer possible in more than three quarters of the country's hospitals, according to the German Hospital Association.

Acting Research Minister Anja Karliczek called on lawmakers to impose regulations requiring people to restrict their contacts, also for those who are fully vaccinated, in line with recommendations by the National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina.

"Politics should follow the advice of science without hesitation. We must not lose any more time," Karliczek told dpa.

Leopoldina called on Saturday for the swift imposition of contact bans for several weeks, irrespective of vaccination status, in order to counter the fourth wave.

The institute also called for compulsory vaccination, at least for health workers.

The debate around efforts to curb the fourth wave of cases has gained greater urgency with the arrival of Omicron, a new and potentially more transmissible strain of Covid-19.

Omicron, first detected in South Africa this month, has been classified as a "variant of concern" by the World Health Organization.

Germany's third case of the Omicron variant was confirmed by health officials in the state of Hesse on Sunday.

The Hesse case was confirmed by sequencing, the state's social affairs minister Kai Klose tweeted.

The European Centre for Disease Control has said the strain could significantly reduce the effectiveness of the available vaccines and increase the risk of reinfection.

©2021 dpa GmbH. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.