District - It will be boosted: The interest in booster vaccinations is great. There is now a recommendation for everyone. General practitioners' practices are experiencing a run and the vaccination centers, which have only just been reactivated from standby mode, cannot keep up. In Bavaria, according to the government, it is possible to get a booster just five months after the second vaccination. Not always and everywhere, however.
For example, a “booster-willing” informed the CIRCULAR messenger that he had tried to get an appointment in Penzing by telephone - without having reached the full six months.
There they pointed out to him that, according to the STIKO recommendation, you only boost after six months.
If he comes earlier, he will be sent away again.
The fact that one would be sent away at the Penzing vaccination center if the second vaccination was not six months ago was also read on social media.
The press spokesman for the Landsberg District Office, Wolfgang Müller, contradicts this: “We do not have booster vaccinations until five months after full vaccination protection at the earliest,” read a press release.
People who come earlier cannot be vaccinated, the Penzing vaccination center expressly points out.
"We are then rigorous," said Müller.
After all, there are still 70-year-olds whose second vaccination was a long time ago and who are still waiting for the booster.
In the vaccination center in the neighboring district of Starnberg, there is also a boost five months after full vaccination protection.
But: "If even one day is missing, it doesn't work," says Stefan Diebl, press spokesman for the local district office.
Among other things, because there is an exemption from liability for five months - not for shorter periods of time.
"We boost after six months," says the press spokesman for the Ostallgäu district office, Stefan Leonhart.
"But if someone comes a few days early, we let the five be right." In principle, the vulnerable group is always preferred.
There is a lot of activity at all vaccination centers.
On the one hand, the tense corona situation leads those who have not yet made up their minds to get vaccinated.
However, this number is rather small compared to the booster vaccinations.
But regardless of the vaccination: getting an appointment is currently not easy.
Desired date?
The online platform www.impfzentren.bayern, which is centrally switched throughout Bavaria, enables those interested in vaccination to book a desired appointment at a vaccination center of their choice.
Corresponding appointment slots will be activated by the vaccination centers - if available.
The KREISBOTEN editors keep getting calls that things are obviously not going as promised.
Just a few days ago, a 65-year-old Landsberger who wanted to get an appointment for his booster vaccination was turned away by employees of the Penzing vaccination center.
At first it was said that the earliest appointment would be possible in four weeks, but it was not possible to plan so long-term.
And the next time I called, all appointments were supposedly all of a sudden until the end of February.
“I suspect that we are all feeling the same right now,” says Starnberg's press spokesman Diebl.
For many months, the influx was rather poor.
“Now the onslaught is here.” But one cannot quickly turn the “switch” of the staff in one direction and then again in the other direction.
Standby in summer, now fully operational again - difficult when "the staff is no longer there."
In the neighboring district of Ostallgäu, the district association of the Bavarian Red Cross is currently in the process of increasing the bookable dates through additional time slots, says press spokesman Leonhart.
The goal is to have a vaccination facility seven days a week.
But until then you still need time: First of all, staff have to be recruited.
“But we're working flat out on it,” said Leonhart.
In the Weilheim-Schongau district, appointments could currently be made from mid-January, says deputy press spokesman Klaus Mergel.
Here, too, efforts are being made to steadily increase the vaccination rate and to activate more appointments.
Some citizens from the Landsberg district would also get an appointment at the Peißenberg vaccination center.
Statistics are not kept on this, however.
It must be clear, according to the spokeswoman for the Fürstenfeldbruck district, Dr.
Ines Roellecke that “the new general booster recommendation as well as the ongoing vaccination recommendation addresses a six-digit number of people in our district alone.” Such a magnitude cannot be vaccinated in a few days, so that a certain waiting time cannot be avoided.
In principle, however, nobody should be discouraged if an appointment is not offered, says Diebl.
Just two days later it could look completely different.
The framework will be expanded bit by bit.
In addition, everyone is also free to go through general practitioners and specialists - maybe that should even be the first point of contact.
Rush also with doctors
Doctors are also feeling the effects of the vaccination and booster boom - and cannot always keep up. The Landsberg family doctor Dr. Until recently, Matthias Lüdtke carried out vaccinations for everyone twice a week. Since last Wednesday he has been limiting the offer to his own patients. “The rush was too big, it just doesn't work anymore.” Other doctors would have withdrawn completely from the vaccination campaign. In the Lüdtke practice, vaccinations are increasingly being made with Moderna, because BioNtech is restricted - as is the case in the Landsberg vaccination center (see page 1) and in the neighboring districts.
Whether vaccination centers, general practitioners or specialists - it is a joint effort, says Stefan Diebl.
A lot is happening at the moment so that supply can be adapted to demand.
Perhaps there will also be other offers: vaccination bus, special vaccination days, vaccinations in the pharmacy.
Low-threshold, so that as many as possible participate.
