[ad_1]
Competition for it should be avoided. But who should get vaccinated against coronavirus first once there is a vaccine?
The federal government assumes that a corona vaccine will be used in the first quarter of 2021 at the earliest. This stems from the national vaccine strategy, which the Corona cabinet is supposed to adopt on Monday.
That means: Then the first doses of the vaccine will hit the market.
Problem: Initially, only comparatively small amounts of vaccine are expected, at least it shouldn’t be enough for everyone.
Solution: Priority groups must be defined beforehand.
That is why scientific government advisers presented the corresponding proposals on Monday morning in Berlin: the document was drawn up by the German Council of Ethics, the Leopoldina National Academy of Sciences and the Permanent Commission for Vaccination (STIK) based in the Robert Koch Institute (RKI).
“At first, the vaccine will be scarce,” said Alena Buyx, president of the German Ethics Council. That is why “prioritization is necessary until there is enough.”
Risk groups, older people and the police and health officials first
One thing is certain: risk groups such as the elderly and people with previous illnesses, as well as personnel in important areas such as healthcare, police and firefighters, must be in the limelight.
Now, in a 15-page document from the Ministry of Health (available from BILD), there are specific groups that should be the first to receive the vaccine:
▶ ︎Risk groups. But they have not yet been precisely defined. “‘Significantly higher risk’ is not simply ‘higher risk,'” said Buyx, head of the Ethics Council. “What that means exactly has to be compared to the vaccine doses available, but that does NOT mean ‘all over 60’ or ‘all with one or two risk factors. But really the groups with higher risks. ”
The exact limits would be determined when the data is there and the size of the respective groups is known.
▶ ︎ “Inpatient or outpatient geriatric and medical care facility employees.” Reason: Your highest risk of infection.
▶ ︎ “People (groups of people) who occupy a key position in basic areas of services of general interest and for the maintenance of central state functions (for example, employees of health authorities, police and security authorities, the body of firefighters, teachers and educators), in particular if they have direct contact that increases the risk with patients, members of risk groups or potentially infected people ”.
Insurance coverage does not play a role in prioritization, he said. People who are heavily overcrowded in homes for the homeless or asylum seekers should also be among the priority.
Principles of order, not a detailed recommendation
IMPORTANT: There are no decisive results yet from ongoing clinical studies (phase 3) on the properties of vaccines.
According to experts, it is not yet possible to make a detailed recommendation by the vaccination commission on the groups of people to be vaccinated. The recommendations only address the “ethical and legal principles” according to which prioritization should take place.
They say: “In addition to self-determination, these are non-harm or protection of integrity, justice, fundamental legal equality, solidarity and urgency.”
Vaccination goals
Are:
1. Prevention of serious cases (hospitalization and deaths). 2. Protection of people with a particularly high occupational risk. 3. Prevention of transmission and protection in settings with a particularly high proportion of vulnerable people or high potential for an outbreak. 4. Maintenance of state functions and public life.
“With Covid-19, vaccination target 1 is primarily decisive,” said Alena Buyx of the Ethics Council.
No vaccination requirement
The Commission emphasizes: Vaccination must be voluntary. “In principle, vaccines require an informed and voluntary consent. Therefore, the prioritization criteria must be presented to the population in an understandable way. The position paper authors also rule out a general and undifferentiated vaccination requirement. “
Goal: 60 to 70 percent of the population should become immune.
Leopoldina’s Professor Gerald Haug cautioned: “Even if a vaccine is available, contacts should be restricted.”
Explosive: Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) said on a Sunday: The main task is to make the population as a whole immune to the virus. If between 60 and 70 percent of the population is immune, through vaccination or a disease they have suffered, the virus is “more or less defeated,” Merkel said. “Then we can also lift all restrictions.”
Database of those already vaccinated
The federal government is planning central documentation of vaccines. “For this purpose, a web-based data portal will be used, which will be developed by the RKI when vaccination activities begin in Germany,” the portal quotes.
The government intends to provide the most complete and up-to-date description possible of which sections of the population have already been vaccinated.
► Consequently, non-personal information such as age, sex, place of residence and indication of vaccination, as well as the place and date of vaccination and the vaccine product with batch number, must be recorded.
Seven vaccines underway
According to the portal, the document mentions seven possible vaccines for which approval is requested within the EU.
► Among them, that of the Biontech company from Mainz, which cooperates with the US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, and that of Curevac from Tübingen.
“Some vaccine manufacturers have announced a possible first delivery of vaccine doses to EU member states in 2020,” he says. “As soon as sufficient quantities of vaccine are available, the goal is to transfer vaccination activities to the regular system.”
Countries establish vaccination centers
State health ministers and federal minister Jens Spahn (CDU) agreed on Friday a uniform and coordinated procedure for the supply of vaccines.
► The decision of the conference of health ministers calls for the federal government to obtain and finance vaccines and for the federal states to establish vaccination centers. The vaccines are said to be delivered by the Bundeswehr or by the manufacturer. Vaccination doses should be distributed to federal states according to the proportion of the population.
► The decision also states that vaccination is voluntary.
Spahn: Up to 40 percent of Germans belong to the risk group
Meanwhile, Spahn warned Sunday night in the political talk “The Right Questions” on BILD LIVE that up to 40 percent of people in Germany were at risk from the Corona crisis. “We have 23 million Germans over 60,” said the CDU politician.
“We are a prosperous country with diseases of civilization: diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity. All risk factors for this virus, as well as many infectious diseases, too. “Spahn warned:” If the definition is followed, 30 to 40 percent of the population is at risk.
And furthermore: in view of the current infection rate, Spahn said: “If about two percent of the 20,000 newly infected people have to go to intensive care in one day, then that’s 400 a day. If intensive care treatment and support last an average of 15 days, that’s 6,000. ”
Germany “will reach this number in November, which is basically predictable.”
Recently, the number of new infections has increased considerably. On Saturday, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) reported 23,399 new cases, the highest value so far. Unsurprisingly, there were fewer than 16,017 on Sunday, because the number of cases reported is typically lower on Sundays, in part because fewer tests are conducted on the weekend.
