[1] On 15 February, some 300 people met in the densely packed citizencenter of Gangelt, Heinsberg (district), North Rhine-Westphalia for a carnival celebration.
[3] He was previously treated at University Hospital of Cologne on 13 and 19 February for a pre-existing medical condition.
[4][5] On 26 February, his wife, a kindergarten teacher, tested positive; both were isolated at University Hospital of Düsseldorf.
[22] On 4 March, the first case in Bochum was confirmed when a 68-year-old man returning from vacation in Italy tested positive.
The local authorities announced that all schools, kindergartens, daycare facilities and interdisciplinary early intervention centres will remain closed until at least 15 March 2020.
[34] On 11 March, the number of positive cases in North Rhine-Westfalia increased to 801, including 3 deaths.
[36] That day the government of NRW announced that all schools and kindergartens would be closed starting 16 March.
On 14 March, the Robert Koch Institute stated that the number of active cases had risen to 1,154.
[2] On 17 June, German authorities announced that there was a major cluster at a slaughterhouse run by Tönnies in the city of Gütersloh.
[38] The smaller cluster in Dissen with initially some 90 infected people had been identified in mid May.
[39] As a consequence of the new cluster with hundreds infected at slaughterhouse near Gütersloh, schools in the districts were closed until the start of the summer holidays on 29 June.
Virologist Isabella Eckerle stated that she considered it "extremely unlikely" that the spate of infections had been the result of workers returning to their home countries in Eastern Europe over the preceding long weekend, and that a superspreading event was more likely to have been the cause of the outbreak.
[41] On 23 June, the number of confirmed cases stood at above 1,500, Minister President Armin Laschet and State Health Minister Karl-Josef Laumann announced that neighbouring districts of Gütersloh and Warendorf would, until 30 June, be subject to the same contact restrictions as in March.
In response to the development, Bavaria issued a temporary ban for hotels to accommodate guests coming from any district which exceeded the threshold of 50 infections per 100,000 residents in the past seven days, unless travellers could produce an up-to-date negative coronavirus test.