BERLIN, Dec. 10 (Xinhua) -- Germany has reported 23,6792 new cases of COVID-19 over the past 24 hours, bringing the nation's total to 1,242,203, the federal Robert Koch Institute (RKI) said on Thursday.

The country's death toll has increased by 440 to 20,372, the RKI's COVID-19 dashboard showed.

To cope with rising COVID-19 infection rates, Germany's federal and state governments decided last week to extend a partial lockdown until Dec. 20.