The number of coronavirus patients in Germany jumped to 684 on Saturday, with concern growing at the economic impact of the spreading epidemic on one of the world's most trade-dependent economies, according to Reuters. The number of patients recorded by the Robert Koch Institute had risen by 45, with large clusters in the west and south, where one initial outbreak centered on a car supplier with a unit in Wuhan, where the infection was first detected. The total is more than 10 times larger than it was a week ago. There were 66 cases in Feb. 29. Western Europe's most populous country, Germany has the second largest number of registered cases on the continent after Italy. So far, no deaths have been reported, though the RND newspaper group reported that a transplant patient with a depressed immune system and who had contracted coronavirus was in a critical condition. With concern growing at the vulnerability of long international supply chains to such an epidemic, Ola Kallenius, chief executive of Mercedes maker Daimler, warned against a return to economic nationalism.
