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Steffen Seibert in the federal press conference: "So it is crucial to avoid new infections as always possible"
Photo: Christian Thiel / imago images / Christian Thiel
Government spokesman Steffen Seibert and the spokesman for the Federal Ministry of Health, Hanno Kautz, defended the federal government's strategy for the procurement of vaccines.
Seibert said in a press conference that the federal government was behind "this fundamental decision."
"We are convinced that this was and is the right way," he said and added: "Yes, the impatience and the many questions that citizens are now asking are understandable."
Seibert said that European cohesion had proven to be important, especially in the corona pandemic.
How and whether the corona crisis would be fought together will contribute to how the EU is perceived in the world.
Reports from the hospitals in Germany showed the difficult situation.
"So it is crucial to avoid new infections as much as possible," he said.
According to the government, bottleneck is not "order quantity" but "production capacity"
Kautz said there was "enough vaccine for Germany".
»It would have made no difference whether we order nationally or European.
The bottleneck is not the order quantity, the bottleneck is the production capacity «.
A different ordering practice would not have changed that.
In addition, Health Minister Jens Spahn (CDU) has already ordered 30 million additional vaccine doses for Germany.
Seibert admitted - also with a view to the implementation of the vaccination strategy in the federal states - that "everything is not yet going optimally in all areas."
In this spirit, Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) will also hold talks with the Prime Minister on Tuesday about how to proceed in the corona crisis.
The government responded to reports from the past few days and to inquiries from journalists.
Critics from politics and science had particularly accused the EU of having an incorrect vaccine procurement strategy.
The Leopoldina researcher Frauke Zipp spoke of a "gross failure of those responsible".
Bavaria's Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) said the EU had ordered too little vaccine and relied on the wrong manufacturers.
The scientist and Biontech founder Uğur Şahin told SPIEGEL that he was surprised about the EU's vaccine procurement.
EU Commission also defends itself against allegations
The EU Commission defended itself against allegations.
The aim was to create the broadest possible portfolio of vaccines, said a spokesman for the Brussels authority.
The EU managed to do this "in a context of significant uncertainty" and reserved almost two billion vaccine doses from six different manufacturers.
So far, only the vaccine from Biontech has received approval in the EU.
In Germany, 1.3 million doses of the Biontech vaccine have so far been delivered to the federal states.
This will initially take care of residents of old people's and nursing homes, people over 80 years of age as well as nursing staff and hospital staff at particular risk.
According to the spokesman for the Federal Ministry of Health, 265,000 vaccine doses have been administered in Germany so far.
The EU Commission spokesman pointed out that at the time of the contract negotiations with the manufacturers, it was not yet foreseeable when and whether the agents could even be approved.
"The main point was to buy from different companies." He also denied the accusation that his agency acted too late: "We already invested in Biontech long before it was clear that this candidate would be successful."
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height / dpa / AFP
