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Health Minister Spahn: "Offer does not fail because there is no vaccine"
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FILIP SINGER / EPA
Federal Health Minister Jens Spahn (CDU) has just changed the vaccination ordinance: Primary school teachers and daycare staff can be vaccinated against Corona since Wednesday.
They were promoted from third to second group in the vaccination sequence.
Spahn apparently has no doubts that the vaccine could still be too scarce for such a change.
"The quantities of vaccine that we have available - by the way, especially with regard to the 18 to 64 year olds and AstraZeneca - make this step possible in my opinion," said the minister on Deutschlandfunk.
Accordingly, Germany currently has "significantly more vaccine" than it did a few weeks ago, Spahn said.
This enables "that people with previous illnesses also receive their vaccination offer very promptly."
Spahn now sees responsibility for vaccination offers with the federal states
According to the Robert Koch Institute, 5.4 million doses of vaccine had been injected nationwide up to and including Tuesday, mainly in people over 80 years of age.
Now it is up to the federal states to make vaccination offers locally for those with previous illnesses as well as educators and teachers, said Spahn.
"At the moment this offer does not fail because there is no vaccine, and that is a new quality compared to four weeks ago."
Unlike Spahn, the federal states complain about the lack of a vaccine.
They say there is no lack of staff.
In theory, vaccination capacity in Germany could be at least doubled by the beginning of April.
That was the result of a survey by the news agency dpa.
According to figures from the manufacturers Biontech / Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca, almost 19 million vaccine doses could then be delivered.
In Bavaria, for example, it is expected to increase from 46,000 vaccinations per day to 111,000 by April.
In Baden-Württemberg, up to 60,000 vaccinations could then be given every day.
Currently there are 14,000 to 19,000.
According to the Länder, growth up to a doubling or even multiplication of the possibilities is also possible in Bremen, Brandenburg, Rhineland-Palatinate, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Schleswig-Holstein or Thuringia.
For Health Minister Spahn, the sluggish vaccination campaign has become a political problem.
Chancellor Angela Merkel withdrew his original promise to be able to make a "vaccination offer" to all Germans in the second quarter, postponing the deadline to the end of summer in September.
Merkel also broke Spahn's promise to make free rapid tests possible for all citizens from March 1st: The rapid test strategy will be discussed at the next federal-state meeting on March 3rd.
The Chancellor wants to link this to an »intelligent opening strategy« for the corona measures.
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mes / dpa