BERLIN, (Reuters) -Germany recorded a record of 50,196 coronavirus infections on Thursday. The fourth consecutive daily high was set by a new wave of COVID-19 infected patients.

According to Robert Koch Institute public healthcare authority, there are now 4,89 million confirmed coronavirus infections and that number has risen to 97.198 deaths.

According to the institute, there was a significant increase in coronavirus 7-day incidence rates – that is the rate of infected people per 100,000 over the past week. This number rose to 249 on Wednesday from 232.

Reinhard Sager is the President of the German Association of Local Authorities (DLT). He asked the industry and caterers to make sure that their customers were vaccinated against the virus.

Sager said to Rheinische Post, “The concern of losing customers should be substantially less than that about the potential consequences if they fail to fulfill the control obligations.”

Three German parties are in negotiations to form a government coalition by December 1. They have also agreed to not extend an emergency nationwide despite the outbreaks of disease.

They instead presented Monday’s draft law, which would amend the existing laws to permit measures like compulsory face masks or social distancing from public places to continue being enforced up to March next year.

This draft law is expected to be presented to Bundestag, the lower house of parliament, on Thursday. Then it will be put to a special session for voting a week later.

Dirk Wiese (Deputy Parliamentary Leader of the Social Democrats) said that the parties may allow employers to impose a requirement that their employees be vaccinated or recovered from coronavirus.