A controversial issue in German public opinion for days is the shortage of vaccines available in the country. Following an inventory of stocks made when new Health Minister Karl Lauterbach took office last week, he announced that the quantities available, as well as those still to be delivered, were not enough to vaccinate anyone who wished to do so this year. especially with the booster dose. As he informed in a press conference in Berlin on Thursday afternoon, the number of doses of the BioNTech / Pfizer preparation that will be available until the first week of January is around three million. Moderna will deliver about the same number of installments by the end of December. According to Lauterbach, these quantities are not enough to meet the country’s needs. In Germany, 1 – 1.5 million vaccinations are given daily, mainly with the booster dose. This is the highest rate of vaccine supply in Europe, said Karl Lauterbach.
Mutations and new vaccinations
The same problem is presented for the first quarter of 2022. The orders that have been closed for this period provide around 50 million doses of BioNTech / Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. But Germany needs 70 million. Of these, 50 million relate to booster vaccination and 20 million to the first two doses of the vaccine. The need for larger quantities is related to the mutation of the “Omicron” coronavirus. Based on the experiences in Great Britain and Denmark, this mutation is transmitted faster than the “Delta”. A condition for limiting the spread of “Omicron” is, in addition to the strict observance of protection measures, the mass vaccination in the immediate future. This is especially true for the third dose, as the protection rate is 70-80%. Mr Lauterbach said the rate of vaccinations in January would determine whether the Omicron mutation in Germany was mild. In this regard, “vaccinations in March are not important,” he said.
The current Minister of Health has repeatedly stressed in the press conference that the predecessor of Jens Spann is not responsible for the situation in the health sector. A prerequisite for the availability of larger quantities of vaccines than originally agreed from the beginning of 2022 was that Germany, through the EU, which coordinates orders for the Member States, had placed orders with the manufacturing companies by the end of September at the latest. The “Omicron” mutation that led to the intensification of the vaccination campaign for the booster dose and the reduction of the minimum period to less than six months for this dose, however, appeared in November. If Omicron had not been introduced, the available quantities of vaccines would have been sufficient.
2.2 billion euros for additional vaccine purchases
In order to immediately supply additional vaccines, the German Minister of Health has, after consultation with the Commission, contacted his counterparts in Bulgaria, Poland, Portugal and Romania. These countries have unused quantities of vaccines. Always aware of the Commission, Mr Lauterbach is in negotiations with BioNTech / Pfizer and Moderna to deliver German orders earlier than agreed. Responding to this request, Moderna promised to deliver another ten million installments by the end of this year. The same quantity may be available to the company in January. For additional vaccine purchases on Wednesday, the German Parliament’s Budget Committee has approved a budget of 2.2 billion euros.
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