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Police officers in a Stuttgart shopping center (symbol photo)
Photo: Sebastian Gollnow / dpa
Federal Interior Minister Horst Seehofer (CSU) has spoken out in favor of vaccinating police officers earlier.
"We have to protect those who protect us," said Seehofer.
In addition to teachers and educators, the police must also be vaccinated earlier.
"Our police officers don't know in the morning who they'll meet in the course of the day," said Seehofer.
Anyone who should arrest someone cannot keep their distance.
At a conference of health ministers on Monday, the federal and state governments agreed to classify teachers at primary and special schools and daycare workers in priority group two instead of three in the vaccination ordinance.
This should be implemented in the course of the week.
However, police and law enforcement officers who are exposed to a high risk of infection on duty, for example during demonstrations, have already been assigned to priority group two - as are soldiers on missions abroad.
The teachers and day-care center employees would therefore be put on an equal footing with these police forces through the newly agreed regulation.
Vaccinations for police officers are already under way
In several federal states, police officers can already or shortly be vaccinated against the coronavirus.
In
Brandenburg
, over 1000 officials had already received a vaccination by Tuesday, the police headquarters said.
The vaccination campaign for police officers started there last week.
In
Berlin
, the health administration announced that 12,000 police officers could soon be voluntarily vaccinated.
The health authority in
Hamburg announced
that the first vaccinations for police officers and resident doctors had already been given over the weekend.
In the federal states mentioned, officials receive the vaccine from the manufacturer AstraZeneca.
In
Rhineland-Palatinate
, the police will start the vaccinations this week; in Thuringia and Hesse, vaccination appointments for the second highest priority level are to be assigned from Tuesday - this also includes police officers who are exposed to a high risk of infection.
In
Hesse
, vaccinations for this group should start on March 5th.
In
North Rhine-Westphalia there
should be early corona vaccinations for teachers and daycare staff from March.
There had been fears that police officers would slide down the sequence of vaccinations.
According to NRW Prime Minister Armin Laschet (CDU) there should be "no collisions" here.
SPD health expert Karl Lauterbach had previously suggested that the AstraZeneca vaccine should be released for larger population groups.
"We should approve the AstraZeneca vaccine for the first three priority groups," Lauterbach said.
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fek / AFP / dpa