A month ago, the German government’s pledge to vaccinate everyone who wanted by July seemed like an impossible fantasy. Barely a few hundred thousand people were receiving a dose each day, vaccine supply was in disarray and many people were not taking up appointments when invited.
Now, the vaccine program seems to be running much more smoothly, with supply chains more certain and between 500,000 and 700,000 doses administered every day. Over 23% of the population have received their first dose and 7% have had two shots, around double the amount at the start of April.
So when Health Minister Jens Spahn announced last week that everyone in Germany could be offered the vaccine by June, many saw the goal as feasible.
Bolstered by this much-needed optimism, Chancellor Angela Merkel and the 16 premiers of Germany’s states are meeting on Monday to discuss the next steps for the vaccination strategy. High on the agenda is the proposal from the justice ministry that those who have been vaccinated or who were already infected should receive “freedoms” from restrictions and be treated like people who have a negative test result.
Who has been vaccinated so far?
One of the most contentious issues in Germany right now is whether the prioritization of certain groups should be removed.
In late 2020, even before vaccines were available, Germany published a list of four priority groups:
The first group includes all people over 80 and who work in high-risk professions mainly in the medical sector;
The second group consists of people aged between 70 and 80 and younger people with a range of pre-existing medical conditions and contacts of high-risk people;
The third group is people aged 60 to 70 and non-medical front-line workers such as supermarket employees and kindergarten teachers;
The fourth group includes all other adults.
While each German state is at different levels of progress, most of the country is currently injecting the second or third priority group — but there are still some people in the first group who have not taken up their appointments.
Why are some people not getting vaccinated?
Part of the issue with the prioritization plan in Germany is that some people who have been invited to be vaccinated are not making appointments. In the city-state of Berlin, for example, only around two-thirds of people who have been invited to get vaccinated have taken up the offer.
It is not compulsory to get a vaccine in Germany but according to most surveys up to 75% of the population say they will accept a vaccine if offered. This number has slowly risen since vaccine rollout began at the end of December.
But the German press has cited other reasons for sluggish vaccine take-up: among them, difficult or complicated booking procedures or overblown bureaucracy that requires a large amount of paperwork to be taken to the appointment at the vaccine centers.
Since the beginning of April, family doctors and doctors in big companies have also begun administering vaccines, which has sped up the procedure.
Which vaccines are available?
Most vaccines handed out in Germany are those produced by BioNTech-Pfizer, with a smaller proportion of Moderna and AstraZeneca vaccines available. Negotiations for the purchase of other vaccines are underway.
Ongoing controversy around the British-Swedish AstraZeneca vaccine has made many people insecure.
Vaccinations with AstraZeneca were briefly halted in Germany and several other EU countries in March when reports of blood clots among those vaccinated were first discovered, despite the European Medical Authority recommending that the benefits outweighed the risks.
Currently, AstraZeneca is only recommended to those over the ages of 60 in Germany, although several states have urged adults of any age to make appointments with AstraZeneca after consultation to stop the doses potentially going to waste.
But despite the statistically negligible health risks, AstraZeneca remains less popular in Germany. Chancellor Angela Merkel was vaccinated with AstraZeneca earlier in April, in what many saw as a publicity move to promote the vaccine’s safety.
Germany in line with EU
The EU as a whole is “confident” of achieving “herd immunity by the summer.” Most scientists say at least 70% of the population needs to be vaccinated for this to be achievable.
After squabbles over purchases of personal protective equipment during the first wave of the pandemic last spring, EU countries agreed to make a joint effort in procuring vaccine doses. But this approach backfired earlier in the year when the EU initially focused on purchasing vaccines rather than producing them, which applied particularly to AstraZeneca.
This vaccine is mostly produced in the UK, but according to the deal AstraZeneca struck with the UK government, domestic supplies had to be fulfilled first. This is part of the reason the UK is so much further ahead than the EU in vaccine rollout, with over half the population having received one jab and 17% having received two: They do not export many vaccines.
The EU, meanwhile, has exported up to half of the BioNTech-Pfizer vaccine that are produced in EU factories.
The upshot of all of this is that the EU as a whole had fewer vaccine supplies to go around, angering many people as the third wave of the pandemic continues to rage across the continent. But AstraZeneca and other suppliers have now sped up production and supply chains are more assured.
Germany’s 7% of fully vaccinated adults is around average in the EU. Malta is leading the way, where over 20% of the population has received both doses. In Hungary, which controversially approved the Russian Sputnik vaccine, around 16% of adults are fully protected. In France, Ireland, and Italy around 8% of adults have been fully vaccinated, while Bulgaria and Latvia have only given two doses to less than 2% of people.
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Article source: https://www.dw.com/en/germany-s-covid-vaccine-program-gets-revamp/a-57336653?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf