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Health Minister Spahn relies on corona vaccines: the first groups should be vaccinated from January. But experts warn against neglect: Again 13,000 new infections were reported.
Several corona vaccines are on the way to approval, ensuring confidence in the corona pandemic. Federal Health Minister Jens Spahn expects the first vaccines in January. So “the first risk groups and health workers should be vaccinated,” Spahn said im Deutschlandfunk.
“Vaccinations are also possible in doctors’ offices since early summer”
Vaccination centers in federal states should be ready for use by mid-December. Although at the beginning – also due to the logistical requirements of the vaccines – vaccines could only be vaccinated in vaccination centers and mobile teams, from early summer this should also be possible in medical practices, Spahn announced. “Once it is in the normal system, we can create large quantities,” said the Minister of Health.
He noted that the elderly and the sick are among the first to be vaccinated. The Ethics Council, the Leopoldina National Academy of Sciences and the Permanent Commission on Vaccination had recommended it.
Moderna submits an application for EU approval
As announced, the American pharmaceutical company Moderna was the first company to apply for approval in the EU in the race for a corona vaccine. The request for conditional approval was submitted to the European Medicines Agency Ema on Monday, said a spokeswoman for Moderna from the dpa news agency.
At the same time, an application was submitted to the US FDA for emergency approval. The corresponding data had been passed on to the FDA, Moderna said. Partners Biontech and Pfizer had already submitted their application in the US on November 20 and await the green light by mid-December.
Optimistic STIKO boss
“Vaccines are the only thing with which we can solve infection problems,” said the president of the Permanent Commission on Vaccination (STIKO), Thomas Mertens, daily topics. “What we currently know about the efficacy of these vaccines is that they protect against disease,” said the head of STIKO. However, very little is known about the risk of infection and the spread of the coronavirus. Therefore, it will take some time before all other measures can be reduced. Although vaccines were developed at a rapid pace, the methods used and the knowledge about mRNA in cells are much older and more resistant.
RKI: more than 13,000 new infections
Despite the partial lockdown, the crown numbers in Germany are still at a high level – the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) reports an increase in positive tests of 13,604. The number of people who died and tested positive increases from 388 to 16,636. Spahn had called for new infections to be controlled: He really wanted to see “that we have lower numbers before Christmas,” he said. This applies to both the number of infections and the intensive care units.
Intensive care physicians view it similarly. According to the Intensive Care Working Group of the German Society of Anesthesiology and Intensive Care Medicine (DGAI), there is an average of only three intensive care beds available per hospital in the whole of Germany. “We are in an absolutely exceptional situation that we have never experienced in the history of intensive care medicine,” said DGAI spokesman Gernot Marx.
Chancellor Angela Merkel warned that there could be a third wave. “We will have to be very, very careful in winter,” said the CDU politician.
