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As quickly as possible, as many as possible: so that the next school year can begin largely normally, children and adolescents from the age of twelve should receive a vaccination offer during the summer holidays.
That is the declared political goal.
Prime ministers and the Federal Chancellor want to discuss on Thursday how this project can be implemented.
It is a late realization that children and adolescents are among the losers of the pandemic - mainly because schools were often closed for many months. Federal Health Minister Jens Spahn (CDU) now apparently has an obligation to make amends. "I'm very concerned about the suffering of the children in the pandemic," he said over the weekend. The CDU politician had rushed ahead in an interview with "Bild am Sonntag" and had given the line for the vaccination summit: a large vaccination campaign for schoolchildren until the end of August. But even three days later, crucial questions remain unanswered. Above all, whether the vaccinations make sense at all now - and where the vaccines for the adolescents should actually come from.
On request, the Federal Ministry of Health does not yet provide any information about the willingness to vaccinate among the young people and how many doses could be used when.
First of all, the vaccine must first be approved for the younger ones, it says there.
However, the EU Medicines Agency (EMA) wants to announce on Friday whether it will also approve the Biontech vaccine for 12 to 15 year olds.
In any case, additional deliveries from the manufacturers are currently not due for the younger ones, according to the ministry.
Some of the cans that the federal government is procuring are to be reserved for young people in the future.
This could spark a new debate about vaccination prioritization.
"Would set back the vaccination campaign by around two weeks"
At the beginning of May, Spahn had already agreed with the health ministers of the federal states how the doses could be distributed for the young people. "The federal states that have a concept to ensure that such a vaccination offer is submitted by the end of August will also receive the vaccination doses required for the first and second vaccinations from the federal government," it says. The other way around, however, also means: In case of doubt, the elderly will have to wait longer for the coveted doses from Biontech - because only these are probably initially considered for vaccinating young people. Later the Moderna vaccine should also be approved for young people. Seen in this way, the federal and state governments will also discuss how to manage the shortage at the summit.
Not all experts are enthusiastic about this. The central institute for statutory health care is already warning of Spahn's plans. "The advance is not understandable at the moment," says institute director Dominik Stillfried the Handelsblatt. "Withholding the Biontech vaccine for younger people would theoretically set the vaccination campaign back by around two weeks." This is critical because schoolchildren still have a lower risk of getting seriously ill with corona than the vaccination groups who are still outstanding.
Eugen Brysch, chairman of the German Foundation for Patient Protection, considers reserving the vaccine for those over twelve to be unacceptable given the current shortage. »It must not be the case that the vaccination progress in the priority groups should be delayed by several weeks. The Bundestag is called upon to immediately stop the federal health minister, who is acting politically and actively, «says Brysch of the Funke media group.
In politics, on the other hand, there is substantial support for the plan to enable children and young people to attend classes again as quickly as possible. "We should make it possible that all children have received the first vaccination before school starts again," said SPD health expert Karl Lauterbach to SPIEGEL. "In any case, we have to prevent school from being canceled again - even if that might lead to the progress of vaccinations in adults being postponed by two weeks," said Lauterbach. That could happen if the children's vaccinations started in July.
Before the vaccination summit on Thursday, it was already clear that the prime ministers are pursuing very different approaches to vaccinating young people - or that they have no concrete plan at all. In Saxony, for example, the Ministry of Social Affairs is responsible. Here “the votes are in progress”, a “final result” is not yet available, according to the authorities. Serial vaccinations or vaccinations in schools are, as much one can say, not provided.
Bremen has already presented a rough concept.
Schoolchildren should be informed about vaccination offers by post and can then book an appointment at the vaccination center.
In addition, pediatricians and general practitioners should be able to vaccinate;
Mobile vaccination teams should set syringes in schools or youth centers, for example.
Thuringia speaks of a "vaccination summer" for children, adolescents and families.
The state wants to provide vaccination education and provide vaccination offers to schoolchildren, especially in the state's vaccination centers.
Lower Saxony is requesting one million additional doses of vaccine
Lower Saxony was one of the first federal states to present a specific timetable, according to which all children and young people from the age of twelve could have their first and second vaccinations by the end of the summer holidays. Education Minister Grant Hendrik Tonne spoke of "homework done". With the concept one can now »build a stable bridge to full face-to-face teaching after the summer vacation«. Together with Health Minister Daniela Behrens, he has sent a corresponding paper to the Federal Ministry of Health. This is an example of the sticking points in the vaccination debate. Because the implementation is linked to several conditions.
First
, an accelerated approval of the Biontech / Pfizer vaccine for children from the age of twelve must actually take place through the EMA.
Second
, pupils in secondary schools are about to vaccinate 450,000 people.
The country is therefore demanding an additional one million vaccine doses from the federal government.
If these are not delivered, the vaccination of the younger ones might be done at the expense of other groups - or it will be canceled.
"It is now up to Federal Health Minister Spahn to provide the necessary vaccination doses," it says from Lower Saxony.
In detail, the Lower Saxony concept looks like this:
The first vaccination should take place in the first two weeks before the holidays, i.e. from mid-July.
Since the interval between the second vaccination can be a maximum of 42 days, the second vaccination must then be carried out during the holidays at the end of August / beginning of September.
According to the concept, vaccinations should either take place in vaccination centers or by having mobile teams come to schools, sports halls, auditoriums or even meetinghouses and town halls and vaccinate there.
So-called vulnerable schoolchildren and children with disabilities can have themselves vaccinated by the family doctor or pediatrician.
According to the state government, the school should support the vaccinations with a view to logistics, organization, survey of those willing to vaccinate and informing parents.
The school administrators and teachers have "beyond this, no active role in the vaccination process."
The concept expressly states: “The parents basically decide whether, when and where the child will be vaccinated or whether the young person will take advantage of the vaccination offer.
It's an offer, not an obligation. "
Compulsory vaccination through the back door?
The concern that children and adolescents will only be allowed to sit in the classroom with vaccinations has been worrying parents, teachers and pediatricians for days.
"My biggest concern is that Ms. Karliczek is also introducing compulsory vaccinations through the back door," said Axel Gerschlauer, spokesman for the Federal Association of Pediatricians (BVKJ) of the "Rheinische Post".
The doctor emphasized that school attendance should not be linked to a corona vaccination.
"Politicians have to keep their word here."
Incidentally, there is no need for children to be vaccinated. "Children are not drivers of corona infection, and the risk of getting seriously ill is low for them - unlike measles." That is why he does not believe in vaccinations in schools, said Gerschlauer. Instead, the pediatrician practices are asked. »The first point of contact are practicing paediatricians. We are the vaccination professionals, nobody vaccinates as much as we do. «Second, he sees vaccination centers, especially in rural areas, where the density of doctors is not as high as in the cities.
Health Minister Jens Spahn (CDU) constantly insists that a vaccination should not be a prerequisite for participation in classroom lessons. "I do not see that we will have a compulsory vaccination for school attendance." Federal Family Minister Christine Lambrecht (SPD), who has just taken office, confirmed on Wednesday that no one should be excluded from classroom teaching because they had not been vaccinated. Nonetheless, both of them emphasize again and again how important it is to vaccinate younger people - while the Standing Vaccination Commission (Stiko) is rather skeptical on the subject.
Rüdiger von Kries, professor of child epidemiology and one of the 18 members of the commission, said in the program »RBB-Spezial«, »Child vaccinations are made so that children can benefit from them, so that children are spared serious illnesses without risking them enter. If the risk is unclear, I cannot currently predict that there will be a vaccination recommendation for a general vaccination. "
The goal of herd immunity can be achieved much better if one takes care of the 40 million who have not yet been vaccinated, said von Kries.
They would also benefit much more from the vaccinations than the children.
For the application for approval for young people, the manufacturer Biontech / Pfizer carried out a test on around 1,000 young people.
The Stiko is not enough for your recommendation to be able to predict rare complications after vaccination.
She wants to wait for more data from the United States and Canada, where the vaccine has been given to adolescents since May, and only clarify in the next 10 to 14 days whether she recommends vaccination.
Lauterbach would expressly recommend vaccination
Spahn, on the other hand, relies on corona vaccinations for older children and adolescents one way or another. The Stiko give a recommendation, said the CDU politician in the program "Frühstart" on RTL / ntv. "In the light of this recommendation, parents can then make specific decisions with their children and doctors as to whether or not someone should be vaccinated." This is an individual decision. SPD health expert Karl Lauterbach told SPIEGEL that he would find it "disappointing" if Stiko did not recommend vaccinating children and thus shift the responsibility onto parents and doctors. "Many will be overwhelmed with that." That would also make the vaccination campaign difficult to communicate with.
From Lauterbach's point of view, the data situation and the basic study situation on the vaccine justified a vaccination recommendation. “I would go so far as to expressly recommend vaccination for people over the age of 12. I consider the risk of side effects for this age group to be extremely low. The consequences of a Covid19 disease are likely to weigh much more heavily in comparison. «Several state leaders have now announced that they want to follow the recommendations of Stiko, including North Rhine-Westphalia's Prime Minister Armin Laschet.
Either way, time is running out if everyone should have a vaccination offer by the new school year.
The first federal states start their summer vacation in mid-June, and lessons start again in some places at the beginning of August.
Laschet said that there is still "controversial" discussion among the federal states as to whether the schoolchildren in those states where the summer holidays begin the earliest should be vaccinated first.
There is currently no agreement.
In addition, the debate has so far only been about pupils from the age of twelve.
The Stiko assumes that a vaccine for younger people will not be approved until the end of the year at the earliest.
There is no vaccination campaign in sight for them.
What will happen to the hope for more normalcy in the new school year?
The virologist Christian Drosten is optimistic, because for him the school operation does not necessarily depend on mostly vaccinated children and adolescents.
It is to be expected that the parents of students will be vaccinated, and vaccinating adults, says the virologist, referring to experiences in Great Britain, could interrupt the ping-pong effect between schools and households.
With material from dpa and AFP