Experts and politicians on Saturday criticized the German government for failing to provide adequate vaccination doses ahead of the country’s coronavirus vaccination campaign.
As a member of the EU vaccine procurement program, Germany relies on European-level regulators to authorize the vaccine to prevent COVID-19 infection.
But the EU has taken longer than countries like the UK, US and Canada to give the green light.
So far, only the BioNTech-Pfizer vaccine has been allowed in the EU member states, but the block as a whole only placed an order for 300 million doses in the summer, believing more vaccine alternatives would be available.
Frauke Zipp, a neurologist and member of the advisory Leopoldina Academy of Sciences, on Saturday denounced German lawmakers for their lack of foresight over vaccine procurement.
“I see the current situation as a gross failure,” she said The world newspaper. “To be on the safe side, why didn’t they order much more of the vaccine in the summer?”
BioNTech’s founders said Friday that they were rushing to boost production after being pressured to fill the gaps caused by the EU’s blunder.
German Health Minister Jens Spahn has rejected any suggestion that the government has been lax in its approach to vaccinating the country. “It is going exactly as planned”, he told broadcaster RTL.
Spahn said he expected a shortage in the beginning and that the government should give “priority” to who would get vaccinated, but that all nursing home residents would receive the vaccination by the end of January.
Vaccination is a ‘race against time’
Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn defended the EU’s vaccine strategy on German radio broadcaster RBB, saying the Commission had obtained nearly two billion doses from six different manufacturers.
Karl Lauterbach, health expert for the center-left Social Democrats, told the Rheinische Post the newspaper said Brussels’ failure to buy more of the Moderna vaccine was “regrettable”.
“It was clear early on that the Moderna vaccine had strong efficacy and could be used by GPs.”
Lauterbach thinks it is too late for the Moderna vaccine to play an important role in Germany’s short-term vaccination needs. He also criticized the EU for not ordering more BioNTech-Pfizer vaccines at an early stage.
Bernd Riexinger, co-chair of the Socialist Left Party, directly called on Health Minister Jens Spahn to ensure continued production of BioNTech-Pfizer injections.
He said that given the spread of the new COVID-19 variant in the UK, “a successful vaccine strategy is also a race against time.”
Lockdown should not end too early
Chancellor Angela Merkel will meet with state prime ministers on Tuesday to discuss a likely extension of the current lockdown, which will end on January 10.
Ahead of those talks, Uwe Janssens, president of the German Interdisciplinary Association for Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine, called on the government to reconsider its plans.
He told it Rheinischer reports that hard curbs must remain even if the government achieves its target of 50 per 100,000 residents.
“We strongly recommend that intensive care physicians do not consider relaxation until the incidence falls below 25 new infections per 100,000 population per week,” said Janssens.
The current infection rate in Germany is 141.2 according to the Robert Koch Institute. However, this number varies wildly across the country with some regions in Saxony registering more than 500.