Bund-Länder Summit: promote vaccination, do not convince the skeptics

Family doctors should be involved in vaccinations after Easter, and that’s a good thing. Because they know their patients. Vaccine skeptics don’t have to convince doctors in droves.

Vaccination will not be very fast in April either. And general practitioners are disappointed that they initially receive so few doses of the vaccine. Therefore, the Berlin Health Insurance Doctors Association even wants to terminate the contract with the vaccination centers. That’s wrong: if the vaccine arrives as planned, family doctors will receive as much as vaccination centers at the end of April.

Kirsten girschick
ARD capital study

@Girschick

One thing that speaks for family physicians: they know their patients. You know who is most likely to be at the highest risk for a severe course and who has not yet been included in the prioritization. You can visit the family with the chronically ill child, the physically disabled person who does not live in an institution, or the cancer patient at home.

Do not collect more vaccination doses

The argument that only general practitioners could convince skeptics of AstraZeneca’s vaccines seems incomprehensible. There are far more people who would get vaccinated immediately, no matter where and regardless of the vaccine, than there are people who would get a priority in the next two months.

The bottleneck is not vaccination skepticism, but vaccination doses. And at the same time we are already in the third wave. Therefore, the vaccination doses should no longer be kept for the second step, but the first vaccines should be distributed to the largest possible amount as soon as possible, because they already protect against serious courses.

That should also be a priority in high-risk areas on the borders, with the additional doses they are receiving now. And yes, a little more flexibility, as the chancellor warned, doesn’t hurt either. Now you can finally go before German thoroughness.