Frankfurt, Berlin The Standing Vaccination Commission (Stiko) expanded its recommendation for a Corona booster vaccination on Thursday. The committee is now recommending the so-called booster vaccination for all people aged 18 and over. So far, the Stiko had only advocated booster vaccinations for people over 70 years of age and particularly vulnerable people.
In addition, the Commission urges everyone who has not yet been vaccinated to take advantage of the Covid-19 vaccination offer. The most important questions and answers.
According to Stiko, the booster vaccination should usually be given six months after the last vaccination dose of the basic vaccination. The booster vaccination makes sense because the vaccination protection wears off over time, as numerous analyzes and clinical studies have shown in the meantime. As the vaccination protection decreases, the likelihood of contracting the coronavirus increases, although the risk is higher in older people.
The European Commission had already approved the two mRNA vaccines from Biontech and Moderna as booster vaccinations in October. As a result, the Stiko initially recommended a booster vaccination, especially for people over the age of 70, people with immunodeficiency and for staff in medical facilities. These groups should continue to be offered a booster vaccination, according to the Stiko.
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The aim of expanding the existing vaccination recommendation is also to weaken the transmission of the Sars-CoV-2 virus in the population and to prevent additional serious illnesses and deaths. “Breakthrough infections lead to a serious illness in old people more often than in younger people, which necessitates intensive medical treatment,” says the Stiko.
Regardless of which vaccine was previously used, an mRNA vaccine should be used for the booster, either Comirnaty from Biontech and Pfizer or Spikevax from Moderna.
People who have received the basic vaccination with the Astra-Zeneca vector vaccine will therefore also be offered a booster vaccination with an mRNA vaccine six months after administration of the second dose.
The commission recommends all people who have received the vector vaccine from Johnson & Johnson to improve their protection with a dose of mRNA vaccine from four weeks after the single vaccination – because of the comparatively low effectiveness of the vaccine compared to the now dominant, aggressive Delta variant of the coronavirus.
Why does Stiko only recommend the booster vaccination for people over the age of 18 now?
On the basis of the available data, the Stiko primarily weighs the benefit and risk of such a vaccination for the individual. She also proceeded in the same way with the vaccination for children and adolescents, which she only recommended for widespread use when sufficient data were available for a safety assessment.
The data on booster vaccinations, for example from studies in Israel, initially showed a high level of benefit for the elderly. However, at the beginning of November, Stiko had already announced that its recommendation would be adjusted, taking into account the current epidemic situation, new findings on preventing the transmission of the virus and so-called real-world data from other countries on the influence of booster vaccinations on the number of infections.
For the chairman of the World Medical Association, Frank Ulrich Montgomery, the processes involved in combating the pandemic are taking too long. In this context, Montgomery criticized the Stiko. In principle, it does a very good job, “but it could have hurried up a little more. Sometimes you have to get off your scientific horse in order to quickly help the population, ”said the head of world medical doctors on the television station Phoenix.
They are constantly lagging behind other countries such as Israel, the USA and England and implement the decisions made there with some delay. “The Stiko has to think about whether they can find a faster process, because the other countries are showing us – and showing us,” continues Montgomery.
In the political discussion there were and still are different opinions about the procedure for booster vaccinations. The acting Federal Minister of Health Jens Spahn (CDU) pleaded weeks ago that all people aged 18 and over should be given a booster vaccination after six months.
The chairman of the General Practitioner Association, Ulrich Weigeldt, said that, according to previous medical knowledge, it is not necessary to carry out a booster vaccination exactly after six months in less at risk younger healthy people, he told the newspapers of the Funke group. Even with the third vaccination, it is important to keep an eye on those at risk. In addition, far too many people have not even received the first vaccination.
Is there enough vaccine?
With the new Stiko recommendation, the number of third-party vaccinations required has increased by several million people. Assuming that the vaccination protection has to be refreshed after six months, 30 million people will now have to receive the booster vaccination by the end of the year.
According to Health Minister Spahn, there is also sufficient vaccine for booster vaccinations. According to the federal government’s delivery forecast, around 25.8 million doses of Biontech vaccine and 47.2 million doses of the Moderna vaccine will be delivered to Germany in the fourth quarter. In December alone, around three million doses of the Biontech agent and 30 million doses of the Moderna vaccine are delivered.
According to figures from the summer, the federal government is planning more than 84 million doses of the Biontech vaccine and almost 32 million doses of Moderna for 2022.
Are there enough vaccinators? Where else can you be vaccinated?
If you count the open first and second vaccinations in addition to the 30 million booster vaccinations, more vaccinations would have to be carried out per day by the end of the year – excluding Christmas – than at the heyday of the vaccination campaign in the summer, when a million people were vaccinated per day.
There is still a long way to go before then. In the past few days there has been an increasing number of reports from those interested in a booster vaccination who have been sent away by doctors or who have not been given an appointment in the coming weeks.
In Germany, according to the Robert Koch Institute, only around 5.7 percent of the population received a third vaccination – so far mainly in doctor’s offices. According to the Central Institute for Statutory Health Insurance (ZI), general practitioners accounted for 72 percent of the vaccinations.
“The vaccination rate is mainly determined by the resident doctors and continues to increase,” said ZI boss Dominik Stillfried the Handelsblatt. “It is important to continue to support this now.” In addition to the support of the federal states, for example through mobile vaccination teams, what is needed above all is reliable framework conditions. “The clear focus on the vulnerable groups is crucial for November and December,” said Stillfried. “The capacities for this are given, there is sufficient vaccine.”
The federal and state governments also want to adopt additional measures on Thursday to accelerate the vaccination campaign. According to the first draft resolution, they want to expand the range of vaccinations – the paper explicitly mentions not only mobile vaccination teams, but also hospitals and vaccination centers. To this end, the federal government should ensure financial support until April 2022.
What influence could broad-based booster vaccinations have on the pandemic?
According to a Berlin corona modeler, booster vaccinations on a broad front can reverse the trend of sharply rising incidences. “We see clearly infection-reducing effects in the simulations as soon as around 30 percent of the population have received the booster,” said Kai Nagel from the Technical University of Berlin, on Wednesday, to the newspapers of the Funke media group.
The prerequisite for this is to create appropriate vaccination capacities. “Ideally, like in summer, we would vaccinate at least one percent of the population per day with the booster,” said Nagel. If this 30 percent were reached well before Christmas, then there would be prospects of falling incidences over the holidays.
Christian Karagiannidis, head of the intensive care register of the German Interdisciplinary Association for Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine (Divi), makes similar statements. A million booster vaccinations per day are necessary to significantly reduce the spread of the virus, said Karagiannidis in the NDR podcast “The Coronavirus Update”. “We’re a long way from that at the moment.”
An effect of the booster vaccinations can be expected in four weeks at the earliest. He is assuming that the fourth wave will not expire until the spring of next year.
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