BERLIN / DILLENBURG, Germany (Reuters) – Proud of their national reputation for efficiency, Germans are increasingly frustrated by the slow implementation of a COVID-19 vaccine that their scientists helped develop.
The scarce supply of vaccines, the cumbersome procedures, the lack of medical personnel and an aging and immobile population hinder efforts to get early doses of a vaccine made by Pfizer based in the United States and the German partner BioNTech in the arms of the people.
Germany has established hundreds of vaccination centers in sports halls and concert halls and has the infrastructure to manage up to 300,000 shots a day, said Health Minister Jens Spahn.
But most remain empty, with most states not planning to open centers until mid-January, as they prioritize sending mobile equipment to care homes.
A day spent with a vaccination team in the small town of Dillenburg, 100 km (60 miles) north of the German financial capital Frankfurt, demonstrates careful work.
The team begins by loading a fresh box containing 84 doses of the defrosted Pfizer vaccine overnight in an ambulance waiting and marching toward the Elisabeth residential home.
There they are met by manager Peter Bittermann, who has already dealt with the forms needed to vaccinate residents and staff, and has provided space to manage shots and monitor recipients after vaccination.
The four-member vaccination team, in addition to two participants, only has a few hours to dispense the temperature-sensitive Pfizer vaccine before it is discontinued.
The German Red Cross needs 350 more people to carry out its local vaccination campaign, said Nicole Fey, a spokeswoman for the local district administration.
“We’ve been able to recruit some of them, but there can never be enough,” he told Reuters TV.
LAGS GERMANY
In the first two weeks of its vaccine, Germany has given 533,000 shots, just two-fifths of the 1.3 million doses received. By contrast, Britain has reached 2 million.
Israel, the world leader in terms of the share of the population covered, inoculates 150,000 people daily, thanks to its universal and digital healthcare system that facilitates appointment scheduling.
Germany’s larger size and federal configuration complicate operations, a problem in the United States as well.
Elsewhere in Europe, the decentralization of the Spanish vaccination operation has exposed differences between regions and caused tensions with the central government.
(Chart: administered doses of COVID-19 vaccine 🙂
The 16 German states blame the federal government for not getting enough doses. Doctors at some centers say the shifts have been canceled. In Berlin, a vaccination center was opened, which was only closed on New Year’s Eve for lack of shots.
Spahn says manufacturing problems rather than too few orders are to blame for limited supply, after Pfizer and BioNTech in December cut production forecasts by half to 50 million doses by the end of the year. Each recipient requires two plans.
The government is working with BioNTech to open a new production site in the western city of Marburg, he said. BioNTech chief executive said last week the Marburg plant could enter service in February, earlier than expected.
“With the capacity we have already created in Germany, we will be able to carry out between 250,000 and 300,000 vaccines a day, when we have the vaccine doses,” Spahn said this week.
Germany expects to receive 5.3 million shots of Pfizer / BioNTech in mid-February and another 2 million doses of a second Moderna vaccine, recently approved by the European Union, in late March.
However, it will be barely enough to cover 5.7 million people, or 6.8% of the population, over the age of 80.
THE LAST MILE
As in Spain, state-by-state performance in Germany varies greatly. At the top of the class is Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, in the north, with 15.6 vaccines per 1,000 inhabitants, while Saxony has a rate of only 4.4.
In Thuringia, another retard, State Prime Minister Bodo Ramelow said Tuesday that many doses sent to hospitals had been returned. “If the brakes light up at a vaccination rate of 30 or 33%, we have a real problem,” he told Deutschlandfunk radio.
In Saxony, the ministry of social affairs said there was a lack of consent forms, route planning challenges, outbreaks of COVID in homes and last-minute cancellations that had slowed its deployment.
Shots in Saxony were stored centrally until recently, meaning mobile equipment had to drive long distances before heading to nursing homes.
In contrast to Dillenburg, Saxony has been invaded by volunteers for its vaccine, said Lars Werthmann, regional head of logistics at the German Red Cross.
“The next big task is to coordinate all of these people,” Werthmann said.
Meanwhile, doctors express frustration with appointment booking systems that vary from state to state, saying they cause confusion and erode trust.
To expedite the launch of COVID-19 outbreaks, Germany should distribute them through its network of family medical offices as soon as there is a vaccine that can be easily stored in the refrigerator, the pediatrician said. Berlin Burkhard Ruppert.
Germany hopes to administer shots at doctors’ consultations in a second phase.
“Our strength in Germany is this outpatient care system,” said Ruppert, who runs a local association of doctors. “We are not a country of large-scale managed systems as the UK or Israel could be.”
“We are in a race against a virus,” he added. “We will only win if we vaccinate as much and as quickly as possible.”
Report by Caroline Copley in Berlin and Annkathrin Weis in Dillenberg; Additional reports by Emma Pinedo Gonzalez in Madrid and Nadine Schimroszik in Berlin; Edited by Douglas Busvine and Jan Harvey