Halle's mayor Bernd Wiegand: calls for resignation after vaccination are getting louder

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Halle's Lord Mayor Bernd Wiegand: Demands for resignation are getting louder

Photo: Ronny Hartmann / dpa

Halle's Lord Mayor Bernd Wiegand (independent) received his first vaccination against Covid-19, although it was not yet the turn of the 63-year-old according to the vaccination plan.

Since Wiegand admitted the vaccination a week ago, criticism of the mayor has increased.

In a special session of the city council on Friday evening, some members expressed their incomprehension and anger about Wiegand's behavior in connection with his early vaccination.

There were repeated calls for resignation.

Contrary to Wiegand's claim, not all members of the city council were informed about the procedure with vaccine residues.

This was stated by several politicians from the ranks of the CDU, AfD, SPD, FDP and the Greens.

Yana Mark (FDP) asked the OB to submit appropriate mails.

Although she repeated several times that her two party colleagues consented to their disclosure, Wiegand refused, citing possible conflicts with personal rights.

"Who - damn it - put me on the list?" Asked Tom Wolter (MitBürger & The Party) in the direction of the mayor.

He had no knowledge of an ad hoc procedure or a "random generator".

Vaccination doses distributed by a random generator

Wiegand had admitted about a week ago that he and ten city councilors had already received a vaccination.

The mayor said he and his staff had been vaccinated from leftover doses.

With such residues, the vaccination team first tries to reach members of the first priority group.

If this does not succeed, candidates for the so-called ad-hoc vaccination would be randomly selected from a pool of city employees, emergency services and medical specialists.

To date, 585 people in Halle have been vaccinated with leftover doses, said Wiegand.

According to this, leftover vaccination doses were randomly allocated in Halle for weeks.

The vaccination team called him on January 17 and vaccinated him in a hospital, said Wiegand.

Prior to this, he had made sure several times that no hospital employee was available for a spontaneous vaccination at the time, said the mayor.

At first he did not make his first vaccination known because it was a private matter.

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ptz / dpa