Sharp movements! Pilot flies in SYRINGE form over Germany to celebrate the launch of Covid vaccines across Europe
- Samy Kramer said he hoped the stunt would be a fun way to raise awareness
- The flight took off on Wednesday over the German city of Friedrichscafen
- Germany started vaccinating vulnerable residents on Saturday, followed by most other EU countries on Sunday
A pilot has traced an image of a syringe in the sky over Germany to celebrate the launch of coronavirus vaccination campaigns across Europe.
Samy Kramer said he hoped the stunt would be “a fun and unconventional way to raise awareness.”
Most countries in the European Union started vaccinating vulnerable people on Sunday, while Hungary, Slovakia and Germany started the day before.
Kramer took to the skies on Wednesday in a Diamond DA20 plane with one propeller.
Flight tracking data from FlightRadar24.com showed the small plane tracking the image of a syringe over Friedrichshafen, a German city 126 km (78 miles) from Stuttgart.
“It was a kind of reminder to people and awareness that the vaccine will be available,” Kramer told Reuters news agency.
A pilot has traced an image of a syringe in the sky over Germany to celebrate the launch of coronavirus vaccination campaigns across Europe. Pictured: The syringe-shaped flight path seen on FlightRadar24.com
Pilot Samy Kramer is depicted in the cockpit of the aircraft taking flight over Friedrichshafen, a German city 126 km (78 mi) from Stuttgart
Kramer took to the skies on Wednesday in a small white and blue Diamond DA20 plane with one propeller, pictured
Kramer’s flight came just days before Germany and other European countries began vaccinating vulnerable residents against the coronavirus.
The campaign was supposed to start on Sunday, but Germany started vaccinating residents in a nursing home in Halberstadt in the Harz on Saturday.
“Every day we wait is one day too many,” says Tobias Krueger, operator of the nursing home.
The first person there to be immunized with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was 101-year-old Edith Kwoizalla, the dpa news agency reported.
Krueger said 40 of the home’s 59 residents wanted the vaccination, along with 10 of the roughly 40 workers.
Karen Sievers, 84, (left) was vaccinated with the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine by Dr. Dirk Heinrich at a retirement home in Hamburg on Sunday
A man received the vaccine Sunday at a nursing home in Bad Windsheim, Germany, as part of the Europe rollout
He was among those immunized, but added, “I understand the concerns too.”
Mass vaccination in the European Union, home to nearly 450 million people, would be a critical step towards an end to a pandemic that killed more than 1.7 million people worldwide, paralyzed economies, and has left businesses and jobs destroyed.
The rollout gives hope to some of the world’s hardest-hit countries. At least 16 million cases of coronavirus have been reported across the EU, with more than 360,000 deaths.
It’s because cases of the new variant of coronavirus first discovered in the UK have been recorded in France, Spain and Sweden.