Dr. Immanuel Hardtmann has a syringe with the Modern Vaccine at a temporary vaccination center inside the Alexander von Humboldt cruise ship on the first day of the Covid-19 #HierWirdGeimpft vaccination campaign (Get the vaccination here) on September 13 2021 in Berlin, Germany.
Carsten Koall | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Germany has begun what it has called a “week of action” of vaccination as the government tries to reverse the slowdown in its immunization against Covid-19.
With around 62% of the German population now fully vaccinated, the country’s launch lags behind those of its European neighbors.
With the aim of solving this, mobile vaccination centers for public transport, fire stations, places of worship and sports venues will be set up this week to facilitate access to the vaccine.
Chancellor Angela Merkel implored unvaccinated Germans to receive the shot on her weekly podcast on Sunday, telling them that “it has never been easier to get vaccinated. It has never been faster.” He added that people could get a non-appointment dose from Monday at mobile vaccination centers set up across the country.
While it was “fantastic” that more than 55 million people in Germany had accepted the offer of a vaccine and that 50 million of them were completely vaccinated, Merkel said: “Unfortunately, the infection rate and the number of patients with Covid-19 has increased again in recent weeks, “he added, with the vast majority of people in need of intensive care treatment without being vaccinated.
“To spend the fall and winter, we need to convince more people to get vaccinated,” he said. “I ask you: protect yourself and other people. Get vaccinated.”
Summer slowdown
Sample data show that Germany’s vaccination drive has steadily declined since June, with the phenomenon also observed in other parts of Europe, especially as vaccination initiatives began to target more adults. young people in the middle of summer and when many Covid restrictions had already been lifted.
More than 4 million people in Germany have contracted Covid-19 and some 90,000 people have died since the pandemic began. The latest data from the German public health agency, the Robert Koch Institute, show on Tuesday that 65.9% of the German population has received at least one Covid shot and 61.7% have received two doses.
Covid vaccines offered in Europe and the United States have been clinically proven to prevent serious infections in individuals, as well as significantly reducing the risk of hospitalizations and deaths.
Now Germany lags behind the rest of European countries in terms of vaccine coverage, show the figures collected by Our World in Data.
Now, officials are willing to vaccinate as many people as possible before the fall, when colder weather and a greater indoor mix can allow the virus to thrive and spread even further.
When some European countries have faced slowdowns in vaccination due to hesitation or bumpy deployment campaigns, German officials believe their own deployment is reduced primarily to complacency and not to hesitation of firing.
German Health Minister Jens Spahn told German radio station WDR 5 on Monday that “there are still those who have nothing against vaccination, who may even have already had an appointment, they have lost and they haven’t done any more. “
Some experts believe the impetus for vaccination should focus on those who are still reluctant to receive the vaccine.
The latest results of an ongoing study on vaccination willingness in Germany, conducted by researchers at the University of Erfurt (known as the COSMO study, or Covid-19 Snapshot Monitoring), published on Monday, found that unvaccinated in Germany tend to be younger, women are more likely to have a lower level of education and are more likely to be unemployed and that the German vaccination program can better target people of ‘these groups now.