Lauterbach warns, receives Job's message from London - and an important promise

Created: 12/18/2021 Updated: 12/18/2021, 7:40 AM

From: Christian Deutschländer

As health minister, Karl Lauterbach (SPD) is faced with the task of getting enough corona vaccine © Bernd von Jutrczenka / dpa

Karl Lauterbach explains the new Corona strategy in his first appearance as Minister of Health at the federal press conference.

Above all, time will play a decisive role.

Berlin - He's been sitting in front of this blue wall for three quarters of an hour, and Karl Lauterbach is slowly showing a little impatience. "I can't use an Excel spreadsheet to convince the doctors that they actually have enough vaccine," he says, "but only deliver half of the amount ordered next week." He also says this from his own experience as a vaccine doctor.

That sounds coherent and edgy at the first appearance of the new health minister in the federal press conference.

Nevertheless, the room is full of question marks, a mess of numbers about ordered, delivered, stored, contaminated, donated, promised, reordered, brought forward, leftover cans.

Even after Lauterbach's appearance, it is not possible to understand how great the shortage is in the country.

At the same time, hope is growing that it won't be so wild - because supplies are being procured on all channels.

Karl Lauterbach: Booster vaccination against Omikron variant effective

Lauterbach himself had let go of the alarm call on Tuesday evening. During an inventory, he found that there were only three million cans left. That does not match his ministry's documents, which show that 18.8 million unvaccinated doses must have been there from the previous weeks. It suggests that millions of ampoules must have disappeared - in real life, or at least from vaccination statistics.

That is fatal.

In fact, lazy Germany is vaccinating faster than ever, 1.5 million doses on Wednesday alone.

Lauterbach says that doctors and vaccination centers have ordered eight million doses for the coming week, but that he can only deliver 4.6 million, and that only with the handle in his reserve.

At the same time, time is of the essence, because against the new Omikron variant only the third shot helps effectively.

Those who are boosted have "70 to 80 percent protection against symptomatic infection," he says.

So far that's 23 million.

Omikron variant: EU orders vaccination doses - vaccination campaign picks up speed

There is no doubt that Omikron will prevail. While the new minister appears in front of the cameras in Berlin, the EU heads of government are presented with a bunch of unsightly graphics at their summit in Brussels. As early as January, Omikron will dominate all of Europe from February it will completely replace the other variants. An almost vertical green line shows that Omikron infects a lot more people much faster, including those who have been vaccinated, than the variants before it.

The pace in Europe differs. In Great Britain, no longer in the EU, but already well vaccinated, Omikron is already raging. Lauterbach is still on the phone with his colleague in London on Thursday and does not seem happy afterwards: the number of Omikron cases there doubles every two to three days. Experts expect it to hit the Germans next, and the variant will explode after Christmas.

One thing is encouraging, however: This time nobody in Brussels likes to be accused of having dozed off too long.

The Germans receive support on several levels.

Lauterbach is negotiating with Poland, Portugal, Bulgaria and Romania whether the countries will cede doses at short notice.

At the same time, the EU Commission supports negotiations with the major manufacturers - successfully.

Moderna is urgently delivering 35 million extra booster cans, ten million of which are still this year.

Biontech will add 80 million cans from April, maybe a little earlier.

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