Corona vaccine: Government deviates from the strategy of its own advisers

Sor much is clear: it will not be welcoming. Pictures taken of the construction of the test areas for the vaccination center at the Berlin fairgrounds Twitter published has no charm. The booth builders have at least provided some color with some yellow and orange stripes. But this is not supposed to be about creating a quality stay. If you want to vaccinate thousands of people every day, it is better to make sure that the processes run smoothly and that they all come out again quickly.

Vaccination centers for the next corona vaccination are currently being built across the country. Their number is well above the original plan of around 60. As a rule, one vaccination center is established per district or city. In big cities there are usually more. In North Rhine-Westphalia alone there should be at least 53 according to a survey by the Evangelical Press Service. In Bavaria, they are even planning 96. Berlin is building six, while Hamburg is only building one, which should, however, administer a maximum of 7,000 vaccines per person. Everything should be ready for use in mid-December. Time is running out.

Because on December 11, the European Medicines Agency for the vaccine of the Biontech / Pfizer companies will hold a public hearing. Then approval could follow. The first doses could be ready in a few days. Because the production has been running for months in stock and also at the risk of not getting approval. Allocation of initially low doses is population-based. Berlin, for example, would get 900,000; as it must be vaccinated twice, 450,000 people benefited. Saxony-Anhalt receives 130,000 cans.

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But who receives it? Here there has been a paradigm shift in recent days. As a result, it means that the previous recommendations of the experts who advised the federal government will be abandoned. The Standing Commission on Vaccination, the German Ethics Council and the Leopoldina National Academy of Sciences declared on November 9 that vulnerable groups should be vaccinated first as a priority.

The president of the ethics council, Alena Buyx, named the first vaccination target as “prevention of serious courses”. This would mean prioritizing the elderly, poor health, and nursing home residents. As a second group, he named those “who support the sick”, that is, those who work in the health system.

The prioritization is now reversed. On Thursday, Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) said in her government statement: “Vaccines may arrive before Christmas. We have agreed that these vaccines will be offered to people working in the fields of medicine and nursing and that they will be the first to have access to them. I think that corresponds to the risk that these people will take. ”

At Wednesday’s cabinet breakfast, there was talk of vaccinating the high-risk group of patients and hospital staff in parallel.

There are several reasons why the policy deviates from the recommendations. The experts take their time. Most likely, the vaccine will be available before the final priority list. When asked by WELT, the Robert Koch Institute’s Standing Committee on Immunization confirmed that this list should not be ready until the end of the year, after Christmas.

Regarding the Chancellor’s statements, he says: “We do not know the quote from Ms. Merkel and we cannot give any assessment. In principle, medical personnel are an important group of the population, this is taken into account when prioritizing ”.

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Politicians are apparently getting impatient. “Corona sets the pace, not the politics. When we have the vaccine, it is necessary to speed up the process. As soon as the vaccine is available in significant quantity, we need to clarify who can be vaccinated and in what order, ”says CSU Secretary General Markus Blume.

The background is also two considerations that show the enormous challenges that the country currently faces. On the one hand, the government does not want to risk the vaccine being approved and the infrastructure to start vaccinating immediately has not yet been put in place. “I have asked the federal states for the planned vaccination centers to be ready for use in mid-December. That seems to be working. I would rather have a vaccination center that is ready to go and is still out of service for a few days than an approved vaccine that is not used immediately, ”Health Minister Jens Spahn (CDU) said earlier in the week.

Low-income staff

The Biontech vaccine is not that easy to use due to the cooling temperature of minus 70 degrees. Hospitals have such facilities, at least to a limited extent. By putting doctors and nurses first, the government is reducing the risk of images of empty vaccination centers after the vaccine is approved. The corresponding political signal would be devastating. Politicians choose “the easiest start,” according to a cabinet member. Because the clinics are prepared. In many places, internal surveys have been conducted to find out who is ready to get vaccinated. According to the Saxony-Anhalt Health Minister Petra Grimm-Benne (SPD), numerous clinics have already offered to vaccinate their staff themselves. That should apply everywhere.

The second consideration has to do with the scarcity of human resources. The more patients go to hospitals due to a severe course of Covid-19, the more important it becomes that there are enough people to care for them. In addition, the doctors also work in the planned vaccination centers. Meanwhile, even staff with Covid-19 continue to work. “The truth is: without this exception, in some regions of Germany, in some hospitals and geriatric care facilities, care would not be possible today,” says Spahn.

The government wants to end this situation by prioritizing medical personnel for corona vaccination. Ultimately, this also benefits all those who have to wait longer to receive a corona vaccine and become ill.

For the high-risk group, however, the news means that many of them may have to wait longer. If everyone who works in the medical field, including the administration, were vaccinated, it would be around five million people.

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