"Those were crazy times": Ebersberg vaccination center closes
Created: 12/16/2022, 4:30 p.m
By: Josef Ametsbichler
Clearing out: Vaccination center manager Laura von Winterfeld (left) and Liam Klages, now head of the operating company, carry a patient couch through the empty waiting room.
December 31 is the end for them at Sparkassenplatz.
The offices in the building will be converted directly so that refugees can be accommodated there.
© Stefan Rossmann
The Ebersberg vaccination center closes after two years: The operating company benefits from a career springboard.
A last visit.
Ebersberg
– When the vaccination center opened in Ebersberg over the Christmas holidays 2020, perhaps the most exciting message was the number 20. The boss in the house, who was supposed to supply the Ebersberg district with the life-saving corona vaccine, was 20 years old at the time.
As the youngest vaccination center manager in Germany, he quickly made national headlines.
Now Liam Klages is sitting in the emptying Ebersberg savings bank building.
On a chair – and on packed suitcases.
On December 31, almost exactly two years to the day after it opened, the vaccination center will finally close.
"Those were crazy times," says Klages, now 22 years old, and shakes his head as if he had only dreamed of the past 24 months.
Video chat with ex-minister of health Jens Spahn
The days before the opening on December 27, 2020, when he spent the night in the Ebersberger Hallen so that everything would be ready on time.
The video chat with the then Federal Health Minister Jens Spahn (CDU) in April 2021. The first public mass vaccination with family doctors in May 2021: 3000 people from half of Upper Bavaria got their Astrazeneca injection in the underground car park.
The operator was hit twice.
When they had to throw away twelve doses of the then valuable Astrazeneca vaccine in April 2021 due to missed appointments.
And when they accidentally injected 1800 doses of Biontech that had expired a few days ago.
Later it turned out: no danger for anyone.
But the incident showed the responsibility Klages and the Tresec company, in which he soon rose to become managing director, had assumed.
And the bottom line is that they have grown, as the feedback from those who have been vaccinated and the authorities suggest.
Laura von Winterfeld (24): From receptionist to manager
Towards the end of the day it became easier than in the wild pandemic year 2021. Laura von Winterfeld, the current head of the vaccination center, is sitting on the couch across from Klages.
"We've been well established for a long time," says the 24-year-old.
She worked her way up from receptionist to manager and, instead of working as a biochemistry teacher after her studies, she will remain loyal to the operating company Tresec.
Apparently, she made good use of the tailwind from the vaccination center: According to Klages, the company now employs 40 people alone with occupational safety services for authorities nationwide.
"We learned that, we can do that," he says about this cooperation - and praises the Ebersberg district office, his first major client, as "100 percent citizen-prioritized", from which one learned a lot.
Not that he needs to brush his stomach: In addition to occupational safety, his company has entered the patient transport business and is on the road with around 40 vehicles in Munich and Lower Bavaria.
There is also a security and transport service: the two-man company Tresec has blossomed into a group with Klages at the helm over the course of the pandemic.
at peak times, 150 doctors and 300 employees worked here
In Ebersberg, a pool of around 150 part-time and 450-euro workers will stop at the end of the year.
At the top, the Ebersberg vaccination and test center listed up to 150 doctors and around 300 employees.
As of Thursday, they administered 188,859 first, second, third and fourth vaccinations.
Many no longer come, admits the operations manager from Winterfeld – 10 to 20 a day in the house and 20 to 40 a day by the vaccination bus that tours the district.
You can find more current news from the district of Ebersberg at Merkur.de/Ebersberg.
More people applied for the last shift on December 31 than von Winterfeld could ever classify, she reports: "It's quite an emotional thing." During this time, friendships, holiday communities and relationships developed among them and sometimes broke up again.
"Our people strongly identify with the company," says von Winterfeld.
The 24-year-old will complete the day at reception, where she started.
Liam Klages is already on vacation in the south.
In 2023, the Ebersberg company will turn its back when the test center closes at the end of February.
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