Enlarge image
Seniors willing to vaccinate (archive image)
Photo: Ole Spata / dpa
The Hamburg doctor couple has had enough: of the hundreds of phone calls, the dozen emails a day and the countless discussions with older patients in their consultation hours who refused to receive the vaccine they were offered.
Because it wasn't good enough for them - just AstraZeneca.
»We no longer allow ourselves to be insulted or engaged in countless frustrating discussions!
We also no longer allow ourselves to be put under pressure, blackmailed and refuse any kind of vaccination request !! «, the practice informs the patient.
»According to the Robert Koch Institute, the Standing Vaccination Commission [...] and many specialist societies, we only vaccinate patients over 60 with AstraZeneca.
Biontech is vaccinated to the younger sick patients with solidarity priority. "
Younger people in Germany have to foot the bill: for the vaccine selfishness of healthy older people.
Just like the Hamburg couple, thousands of general practitioners in this country are doing.
You have to fend off countless over 60-year-old patients who vehemently demand that only Biontech and nothing else be vaccinated - even if they have no previous illnesses and take the material away from younger sick people in their priority group.
Often the doctors give in at the end.
Because it's easier for them.
And because the state allows it.
Because unlike the Hamburg doctor couple, politics does not stipulate that healthy over 60-year-olds should not be immunized with the scarce Biontech vaccine.
This failure slows down the entire German vaccination campaign.
And younger people in Germany have to foot the bill: for the vaccine selfishness of healthy older people.
Those who have not yet received their first injection will soon face the big Biontech traffic jam. The first vaccinations with this vaccine will decrease drastically from next week, warn the health insurance doctors. After all, hundreds of thousands of partially vaccinated people have to get their second dose every day. And until the beginning of June there will be no more Biontech than before. The already manageable Moderna deliveries are not growing much either.
Younger people who want to be vaccinated in the coming weeks therefore usually only have the choice between AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson.
It is a paradox.
Finally, the Standing Vaccination Commission (Stiko) recommends both vector vaccines only for people over the age of 60.
With good reason.
The risk of sinus vein thrombosis caused by these vaccines is significantly higher in younger people, especially women, than in seniors, especially men.
Most of the educational work, the discussions and the moral responsibility are passed on to the general practitioners by the state.
In fact, millions of these younger people will initially have no choice but to get involved in these more dangerous vaccines, which Stiko expressly does not recommend for their age.
Most of the educational work, the discussions and the moral responsibility are passed on to the general practitioners: In vaccination centers, according to the plan of the Federal Ministry of Health, only 113,000 doses of AstraZeneca are to be administered this week, in the practices, however, more than 1.33 million.
In this way, the younger ones will become the scrap recyclers for millions of cans of AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson, which are to come in the next few weeks.
Also because so many healthy older people refuse these highly effective vaccines and hoard the scarce Biontech syringes for themselves.
"We were all in solidarity with the elderly for over a year," writes the Hamburg doctor couple.
"Now we are asking the elderly to do the same."
Now the younger ones are left behind when it comes to vaccinating.
That's unfair.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, the younger generation have been behind the scenes to protect the elderly from the virus, which is far more dangerous for them.
Schoolchildren and kindergarten children have not seen their educational institutions from the inside for months and have not visited friends.
Parents taught their offspring parallel to their home office and sacrificed their annual vacation to look after them.
Many are at the end of their tether.
And now the younger ones are left behind when it comes to vaccinating.
That's unfair.
Our rulers and health bureaucrats could change it.
They have rightly established detailed prioritization rules to immunize the most vulnerable people in our society first.
In the same way, they could now regulate that healthy older people only get AstraZeneca or Johnson & Johnson.
So that a little bit of Biontech remains for the others.
But the federal government lets the Biontech hoarders do their thing.
Could it be because the Union has its core electorate in this age group?
In the last federal election, no less than 45 percent of all CDU voters were 60 or older - more than in any other party.
If the Union wants to become the strongest force again in September, it needs its regular clientele.
The very young should line up at the very back of the queue.
Although the EU approval of the Biontech agent for children and adolescents is expected in June, according to Jens Spahn they should not be given a "vaccination offer" until the end of August.
Then the holidays in many federal states will long be over.
And until the students are vaccinated, it should take until autumn.
De facto this means: Our federal government is also accepting corona outbreaks, school closings and even greater educational deficits among the weakest in the new school year.
But these young people are not allowed to vote.
What luck, for Jens Spahn and his Union.