Nurses wait for people to come to get AstraZeneca or Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines at a vaccination center in Guadalajara, Jalisco state, Mexico on April 6, 2022. (ULISES RUIZ / AFP)

BERLIN / MEXICO CITY – Mexico reported 16,133 new COVID-19 cases in the country on Thursday, the highest daily number reported since late February, according to data released by the Health Ministry.

The increase is a signal that another wave of the virus is spreading through the country, experts say.

"What we have been identifying over the last nine weeks is a progressive increase in the frequency of cases," Deputy Health Minister Hugo Lopez-Gatell said in a regular news conference Tuesday.

Lopez-Gatell said most cases in the country are of the Omicron BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants, which cause cold-like symptoms.

"And even more encouraging is that deaths are also being kept under control," he said.

Mexico recorded an average of 24 deaths a day over the past seven days, according to Health Ministry data.

Lopez-Gatell said the rate at which cases are increasing is encouraging "because it suggests that … the protection that we all have, either because we suffered from COVID or because we were vaccinated, or both, works and makes the spread slower than it was."

Germany

Germany's seven-day COVID-19 incidence rate on Thursday increased to 533 infections per 100,000 inhabitants amidst the summer wave, according to the Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases.

The number rose from 489 on the previous day.

After hitting 100,000 new infections within 24 hours earlier this month, the number of daily COVID-19 infections in Germany stood at 119,360 on Thursday, according to the RKI

After hitting 100,000 new infections within 24 hours earlier this month, the number of daily COVID-19 infections stood at 119,360 on Thursday, according to the RKI.

Infections are driven by the more contagious Omicron subvariants BA.5 and BA.4, RKI said. Within a week, the share of BA.5 in Germany more than doubled to around 24 percent.

"We are facing a very difficult autumn," said Health Minister Karl Lauterbach during a press conference on Thursday. "The summer wave has already started, but it will be more difficult in the fall."

Lauterbach will present the country's COVID-19 health measures for the coming fall after examining the results of an expert report on the effectiveness of past COVID-19 measures, which is set to be completed in early July.

In order to be better prepared than the previous year, Germany is procuring a wide range of vaccines. These include vaccines adapted to the Omicron variant, the Ministry of Health said. In addition, "vaccination gaps are to be closed."

READ MORE: Germany's COVID-19 jab panel: One shot enough for children

Maria Assisi holds her four-year-old daughter Mia as nurse Margie Rodriguez administers the first dose of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine on June 21, 2022, at Montefiore Medical Group in the Bronx borough of New York City. (TED SHAFFREY / AP)

US

Advisers to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday unanimously voted to recommend use of Moderna Inc's COVID-19 vaccine for children and adolescents aged 6 to 17.

CDC Director Rochelle Walensky is expected to sign off on the recommendations soon, which would allow the US government to start rolling out the Moderna vaccine for these age groups.

That would mean both mRNA COVID vaccines would be available to all Americans ages 6-months-old and up.

The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, based on similar messenger RNA technology, has been available for teens for over a year and for children aged 5-11 since October.

Roughly 25 million US children and adolescents in that age group have yet to receive even one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, CDC official Sara Oliver told the expert advisory panel.