Karl Lauterbach, Germany’s new health minister, stated that the country’s vaccine doses are insufficient to maintain people’s resistance to the new coronavirus in winter, especially when Omicron variants are expected to increase.
Lauterbach said Germany will receive 1.2 million doses of the German-developed BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine next week and distribute them to vaccine centers and doctors’ clinics across the country. It will receive 800,000 doses next week and distribute another 1.2 million doses next week.
“But this is far below the amount that doctors require each week,” he said, adding that Germany is cutting its reserves. “The campaign must start… but that’s actually it.”
He denied his accusation that the predecessor of Angela Merkel’s government ordered insufficient supply of vaccines, and said that the shortage was caused by the sudden deterioration of the Covid situation.
A record 1.5 million doses were vaccinated on Wednesday, bringing the proportion of people receiving at least double vaccinations to 70% and the proportion receiving booster injections to nearly 28%.
Delta variants account for approximately 90% of German infections, but the more contagious Omicron has been detected and is expected to spread widely next month.
Lauterbach, an epidemiologist and a health spokesperson for the Social Democratic Party, was an active pandemic commentator before taking over as the minister of health this month. He said he was seeking to buy from the United States “as an emergency” Millions of unused vaccine stocks. Eastern European countries.
His Ministry of Health has confirmed reports that it plans to spend 2.2 billion euros to purchase 80 million doses of BioNTech through EU official procurement channels and directly purchase another 12 million doses to ensure that “we can start the new year in a wise way” .
Due to the indecision of vaccines, vaccine stocks in some Eastern European countries are in danger of becoming obsolete if they are not used.
Finance Minister Christian Lindner stated that the funds to cover the costs have been released, “so that next year’s vaccine campaign can continue with a higher intensity.”
The opposition CDU stated that it rejected Lauterbach’s claim that it had insufficient vaccine orders during his tenure in the government and did not maintain proper stockpiles. The party accuses Lauterbach of using false data and creating or exaggerating obvious problems in order to benefit from the relief that may be triggered when sufficient stocks are obtained. Lauterbach strongly rejected this statement.
On Thursday afternoon, he will face rigorous scrutiny on the issue at his first press conference with Lothar Wieler, head of the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), the government agency for disease control.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, press conferences with the Minister of Health (previously Jens Spahn and Wieler) have usually been held once a week and have been the main official channel of communication about the pandemic.
On Thursday morning, RKI recorded 56,677 new infections, a decrease of approximately 14,000 from a week ago, and 522 deaths in the past 24 hours. The 7-day morbidity rate per 100,000 people remains high, falling from 422 a week ago to 340. This improvement is attributed to the increase in restrictions.
Broadly speaking, many venues, non-essential stores, and cultural events require visitors to show digital vaccine certificates or proof that they have recovered from Covid-19, as well as a negative lateral flow test. These measures have been tightened regionally based on the extent of the disease’s spread in a given area.
Approximately 14% of German adults have not yet been vaccinated, therefore calling for mandatory vaccination in the new year. However, health officials stated that any authorization must be accompanied by sufficient vaccine stocks.
