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Saturday, January 02, 2021
Germany vaccine – too slowly
Criticism of Health Minister Spahn grows
The vaccination campaign has started in Germany, but the vaccine is scarce. The moment of opposition has come: the Health Minister must justify himself in the Bundestag, demands the left. But coalition partner SPD is also taking the government to court. Spahn himself contradicts the accusations.
About a week after the start of corona vaccines in Germany, criticism of the federal government’s strategy mounts. A member of the National Academy of Sciences, Leopoldina, accused the grand coalition of serious failures in obtaining the vaccine. The vice president of the SPD parliamentary group, Dirk Wiese, also harshly attacked the Health Minister: “I am currently dismayed by Jens Spahn,” he told t-online. “As a responsible minister, you must finally do your job and get the obvious problems under control immediately.”
So far, more than 188,000 people in Germany have been vaccinated against the coronavirus. By Saturday morning (starting at 8 am) the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) had been informed of a total of 188,553 vaccinations. Compared to the previous day, the number of registered vaccinated people increased by 21,087, as can be seen from the RKI information. Health authorities recently reported 12,690 new corona infections and 336 new deaths in 24 hours. However, it is currently difficult to interpret the data because fewer people were tested during the Christmas holidays and around the turn of the year and the authorities transmitted the data with a time delay. The number of new infections reported in seven days per 100,000 residents was 141.2 on Saturday morning.
Lauterbach calls for speedy approval of Astrazeneca vaccine
SPD health politician Karl Lauterbach also sees clear deficits. Initially, he does not expect the crown situation to improve. “Now we will have the worst three months of the entire pandemic with a high number of infections and deaths,” Lauterbach said of the “Rheinische Post.” Starting in April, a combination of better weather and more available vaccine will result in a light at the end of the tunnel.
In his opinion, Germany and Europe could be further away with vaccines. Very little Biontech vaccine was ordered and very little from the American company Moderna. “From the beginning it was clear that the Moderna vaccine had a very strong effect and could be used in general practice,” Lauterbach said. Due to the small amount requested, the Moderna vaccine will likely play no role even if it is approved soon. The federal government expects this vaccine to be approved on January 6. Lauterbach asked for the vaccine to be quickly approved by Astrazeneca, if necessary, only in Germany.
Leopoldina’s neurologist Frauke Zipp had previously emphasized: “I consider the current situation to be a serious failure of those responsible.” There were offers for more vaccines in the summer, he told the “Welt.” “We have it available now.” For example, Biontech offered significantly more vaccine doses in late summer. La Leopoldina is one of the government’s key advisers on the pandemic.
Biontech announced on Friday that it wanted to deliver more corona vaccine to the EU than previously planned. The company is “in advanced discussions about whether and how we can provide more doses of vaccines from Europe for Europe this year,” said company head Ugur Sahin of the German press agency. The vice chairman of the FDP parliamentary group, Michael Theurer, attacked Spahn over the vaccine shortage. By autumn at the latest, he should have reacted to the rapid developments at Biontech, he told the “Handelsblatt”. “But it did not correct the wrong decision of the federal government and it failed.”
The government statement asked: “Where was the mess?”
The left-wing parliamentary group calls for a government statement from the Health Minister in the Bundestag. “You have to find out why the vaccine is too scarce and where it was neglected,” said the head of the parliamentary group Jan Korte. Spahn also had to explain how capabilities can be increased as quickly as possible.
The Federal Minister of Health defended the speed of vaccines against criticism from the SPD, the opposition and doctors. “It is going exactly as planned,” the CDU politician said on “RTL Aktuell.” He had admitted isolated problems and, at the same time, referred to the expected approval of more vaccines and the planned start of another production plant for the preparation of Biontech and Pfizer in February.
EU Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides also defended the EU vaccine strategy. “The bottleneck currently is not the number of orders, but the global bottleneck in production capacities,” he told the German press agency. “This also applies to Biontech.” At the same time, Kyriakides promised gradual improvements in care. Kyriakides said that negotiations with Biontech had started early and that the company received 100 million euros of help to develop current production capacities. At the same time, contracts were concluded with other manufacturers. “We agreed in the EU that we should not put everything on a single card,” stressed the commissioner. Otherwise, EU states could have been left without an effective vaccine.
