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The German federal government hopes to obtain a marketing authorization “very soon” for the first vaccines against the new type of coronavirus (SARS-Cov-2), German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Sunday.
In a video in which he answered questions from citizens, the chancellor said that there would not be enough vaccines to vaccinate the entire population immediately, so we must consider which groups of members could be vaccinated first, writes MTI.
The issue is being addressed by the Committee of Independent Experts on Vaccine Regulation (Ständige Impfkommission – STIKO), the Leopoldina (Nationale Akademie der Wissenschaften), which acts as the national academy of science, and the Zentrale Ethikkommission (ZEKO). Their joint proposal has not yet been presented to the government, but it is already known that nurses, doctors and members of the most vulnerable groups will be among the first.
This represents a large part of the population.
Angela Merkel added, noting that Germany is the second oldest society in the world after Japan, with a population of 83 million, over 24 million, who, regardless of anyone else, are at higher risk due to their age. The chancellor said that preparations for a vaccination campaign against SARS-Cov-2 had already started. However, it is not yet known how much vaccine will be available or for how long it will provide protection.
On the other hand, it is true that the restrictions imposed by the epidemic must be observed even after the appearance of vaccines.
– Angela Merkel, highlighting that the virus can be considered “more or less defeated” when 60-70 percent of the population has been infected or has acquired protection against the virus through vaccination. The restrictions can only be lifted in this case. said the Chancellor, adding:
Vaccination will not be mandatory, everyone is free to decide whether to get vaccinated.
The Sunday newspaper Bild am Sonntag wrote about the preparations that the provincial governments will announce to the federal government on Tuesday, November 10, where they will establish so-called vaccination centers to which the SARS-Cov-2 vaccine can be delivered. Sixty vaccination centers are planned to be established throughout the country. Centralization is necessary because the vaccine must be stored at a temperature of minus 78 degrees Celsius and many GP surgeries do not have refrigeration equipment of this capacity.
According to the newspaper, the army (Bundeswehr) will also be involved in the vaccine supply work. Thus, warehouses with adequate refrigeration equipment will be installed in various bases to store and guard shipments destined for vaccination centers. According to data from the Robert Koch National Institute of Public Health (RKI) this Sunday, there have been 16,017 infections in the last 24 hours. Along with the new cases, the pathogen was detected in 658,505 people in Germany. The number of deaths related to the disease caused by the virus rose by 63 in one day to 11,289.
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