This is almost entirely due to a single outbreak cluster at meat factory with around 700 cases (Germany's average daily rate has typically been 300-400). Here's the report from the German disease institute RKI: https://twitter.com/SkyNews/status/1274756751624228871

I've linked it before, but this @TomChivers article about why R goes really weird when the number of cases is low is a very good explainer https://unherd.com/2020/05/what-the-headline-covid-figures-dont-tell-you/

(it's actually over 1,000 cases at the meat processing plant now)

Germany's R number is high now mainly because of disease spread in the meat plant and in the poor quality, cramped housing that its workers live in. Neither were affected by lockdown, so save the "THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU LIFT LOCKDOWN TOO FAST" stuff

If – and it's a big if – Germany manages to contain this outbreak, its R value will briefly collapse to about 0.35 (1/2.88). This won't be a sign that the country is suddenly doing really well, it will just be an artifact of the outbreak ending. So you know, heads up

One thing Germany has done well, at least compared to other European countries, is protecting people in care homes and hospitals

One thing it's NOT done well is protecting people in other kinds of poor-quality accommodation, such as refugees and immigrant workers

Churches are kind of weird. A lot of recent German outbreaks link back to them (I've even seen reports that the meat factory outbreak started at a nearby church), but it also looks like it's often due to the churches breaking the rules on distancing, masks, singing etc

Anyway, none of this is unheard of. South Korea doesn't seem to publish an R value, but I put their data into the German R calculator and one outbreak at a nightclub pushed their R up as high as 5.8 for a day or two

OK, one more tweet in this thread. This is a map of cases in Germany in the last 7 days (per 100,000 residents). You can see the localised outbreak pattern very clearly here