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Sunday, December 27, 2020
“We’re running out of time”
Historic vaccination begins with minor glitches
In Halberstadt, vaccination will start early, in Upper Franconia and Augsburg the start will be delayed. SPD health expert Lauterbach urges the federal government to ensure that vaccine production is expanded.
The largest vaccination campaign in European history began on Sunday in all 16 federal states, as well as throughout the EU. Hundreds of vaccination teams across the country moved to immunize a total of several thousand particularly vulnerable people in nursing homes and nursing homes.
Among the first vaccinated in the morning were a 101-year-old woman in Berlin, a 95-year-old woman in Siegen, North Rhine-Westphalia, and a nurse in Frankfurt am Main.
At first there were problems in some Bavarian districts. Due to inconsistencies in the cold chain when transporting the vaccine, the planned start of corona vaccination had to be postponed in eight districts of Upper Franconia and associated cities.
The Coburg, Lichtenfels, Kronach, Hof, Bayreuth, Wunsiedel, Forchheim and Kulmbach regions were affected. In Upper Franconia, vaccines could only be administered in the city and district of Bamberg. Initially, six district administrators had announced that, as a precautionary measure, vaccination should be avoided due to a deviation from normal cooling values in shipping boxes, including Germany’s current upper crown access point, Coburg, where, according to the Robert Koch Institute, a seven-day period on Sunday – An incidence of 543 was reported. Forchheim and Bayreuth were added later.
Meanwhile, there have been similar problems in Swabia. However, after consulting with the manufacturer Biontech, these turned out to be marginal. After talks with the Swabian administrative district and the vaccine manufacturer Biontech, the affected districts in the Bavarian part of Swabia received the signal that the affected vaccine could be used without any problems and vaccination could begin, said a spokesman for the Ministry of Bavarian Health.
Early start in Halberstadt
A nursing home in Halberstadt, in Saxony-Anhalt, caused a sensation, that vaccination had already started on Saturday, although Sunday had been agreed as a common vaccination start across the EU. Those responsible for the Harz district and the local administrator had not wanted to waste time on the dramatic situation.
“It was always said: Every day has Corona,” said Immo Kramer, technical director of the vaccination center in Harz district, of the daily “Bild”. “We got the vaccine on Saturday and we were ready. Why should we wait until Sunday? Nobody understands.” Hungary and Slovakia were also vaccinated on Saturday.
“Key to the pandemic”
Federal Health Minister Jens Spahn was optimistic. “The start of vaccination today gives hope and confidence,” he wrote on Twitter. “Vaccination is the key to getting out of the pandemic.” He is proud that the vaccine was developed “for us and for the world” in Germany.
The focus of the initiation of vaccination in Germany was on people over the age of 80 in nursing homes and nursing homes, as well as caregivers and medical staff. Most of the more than 400 vaccination centers for the general public will not open until the next few days. At a vaccination center in Berlin-Treptow, members of the medical staff stood in line before the opening at 2 pm to get vaccinated.
Lauterbach calls for an expansion of production
In view of the great challenge and the comparatively small amount of vaccine available in the EU, politicians urge to expand the production capacities of Biontech and Pfizer’s corona vaccine. “The vaccination is going well. The problem, however, is that we can only vaccinate five million people with the existing vaccine at the end of March,” said SPD health expert Karl Lauterbach of the German publishing network. “But we are running out of time. The virus has already mutated.”
Lauterbach referred to more recent studies, according to which the virus could possibly form these mutations in immunosuppressed patients, for example in cancer patients or autoimmune patients. “Mutations make vaccination a race against the virus. So we have to vaccinate as quickly as possible before the mutations also act against the vaccine.” Therefore, the federal government must verify whether the vaccine production capacity in Germany could be built or increased in the short term, he demanded.
Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Söder also called for more speed in vaccine production. “The endless waiting also reduces the population’s willingness to get vaccinated,” said the head of the CSU in Munich.
Initially, only a very limited number of vaccine doses are available nationwide. Almost 10,000 cans were distributed in each federal state on Saturday, in Bremen just under 5,000, a total of 150,000 cans. 1.3 million doses of vaccine will be delivered before the end of the year. By the end of March, it should be eleven to thirteen million. For the vaccine to be fully effective, it must be given a second time after three weeks.
