To great ills, great remedies.
To respond to the Germanic phenomenon observed in the two Alpine republics, with complete vaccination rates still below 70% of the adult population, the German government intends to follow the path opened by Austria: compulsory vaccination against the coronavirus.
"Personally. I am in favor ”
slipped the future Chancellor Olaf Scholz, like Angela Merkel, always open to opposing opinions.
The future chancellor is opposed to a voting instruction, he explained to Bild TV:
"Each deputy will have to vote conscientiously."
Bundestag and Bundesrat, the federal council of the 16 Länder, are expected to vote on the text by the end of the year.
The difficult to pronounce “Impfpflicht”, compulsory vaccination, would come into force no later than March.
Thorny questions
The subject has long been taboo, in a country still traumatized by the Nazi and East German dictatorships and their attacks on personal rights.
"The memory of the vaccine obligation of the time of the GDR has left traces in the collective memory"
testifies Professor Hans Vorländer of the Technical University of Dresden.
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Germany did not decide until mid-November to make vaccination compulsory for healthcare workers. But the rational and scientific argumentation has fizzled out in the face of some 14 million German antivaxes and the magnitude of this fourth wave has tilted opinion, now at 69% in favor of more coercion, against 33% in July according to the barometer of the public channel ZDF. Long opposed to the principle, Lothar Wieler, director of the Robert-Koch Institute for Public Health Surveillance (RKI), converted to the idea:
"When we have tried everything else, then the WHO says we must think about compulsory vaccination. "
But the implementation may be complicated.
Following the example of Italy or Portugal, Germany appointed a soldier on Tuesday, Major General Carsten Breuer, to lead the crisis unit.
It is up to him to carry out his first mission: the vaccination of the third dose, complicated by the government's decision to set the expiration of the health pass at 6 months.
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With the predictable influx of recall candidates before the holidays, it is now a question of calling on pharmacists and dentists to perform the injections. Uwe, orthopedic surgeon, vaccinates overtime in his Berlin practice.
“I work every night until 10 pm. I just injected a dose into an 80 year old lady who did not have an appointment until February! With the 500 doses we have, we are making our contribution but we are not a vaccination center. ”
The set target is 30 million bites by Christmas, or 1.25 million doses per day, or double today.
As in Austria, will this vaccination obligation extend to children?
And will we compel the recalcitrant by force or by fines?
Thorny questions when a survey finds that the number of people who do not believe in the existence of the virus has increased to 28% of those questioned in Saxony, a region devastated by the epidemic.
A new meeting between federal and regional officials should detail this compulsory vaccination plan this Thursday.
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