The federal government has achieved its goal of inoculating 30 million doses by the end of the year. But these were mainly booster vaccinations.
(Photo: dpa)
Berlin Olaf Scholz (SPD) likes to set ambitious goals for the vaccination campaign. But this time the Chancellor has set himself a little too much. The federal government is postponing its goal that 80 percent of the population should be vaccinated against the coronavirus at least once by January 7th. “The government is aiming to reach a vaccination rate of 80 percent by the end of January,” said a government spokesman.
The federal government announced its goal only a week ago. “As the next intermediate goal, I would like to aim for a vaccination rate of at least 80 percent,” announced Scholz. A government spokesman added that 80 percent should be achieved by January 7th. Then the Chancellor and the Prime Ministers will probably meet for the next Bund-Länder-Round.
But the goal no longer seems to be achievable. Vaccinations continued during the holidays. On Christmas Day, 35,000 people received an injection. A total of 61.4 million Germans have now received at least one vaccination dose. That corresponds to almost 74 percent.
In order to reach the 80 percent mark, around 5.3 million first vaccinations would have to be added. According to the government, this will no longer be possible by January 7th.
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The federal government, however, has achieved another goal. Even before he took office as Chancellor, Scholz had promised that 30 million doses would be inoculated by the end of the year. It worked. In the meantime, 29.9 million people have received a booster vaccination. This refreshing accounts for a large part of the 30 million vaccinations announced by Scholz.
Unvaccinated still hesitant
That is also an explanation of why he did not achieve his second goal: of the 30 million vaccination doses, only a good two million were first vaccinations, as they say. So many of those who have not yet had the vaccine continue to hesitate. Even on Christmas Day, boosters made up the majority of the 35,000 vaccinations at 30,000. That is why the 80 percent targeted by the government is still a long way off, despite the latest record vaccination numbers.
The Union called on the federal government to quickly prepare a general vaccination requirement. “We as the Union parliamentary group support the federal government in all possible ways to increase the vaccination quota,” said the deputy chairman of the CDU / CSU parliamentary group, Sepp Müller, to the Handelsblatt. The amendment to the Infection Protection Act was approved, clearing the way for dentists, pharmacists and veterinarians to be allowed to vaccinate.
“We expect the new federal government to propose a general vaccination requirement that includes all legal, ethical and practical aspects,” said Müller. It is clear that compulsory vaccination will not get the current Omikron wave under control.
But you also have to prepare for waves to come. “Only with a high vaccination quota can we get out of the constant change of restrictions and easing,” said the CDU politician.
The corona vaccination campaign started a year ago in Germany. Since then, a total of almost 147 million doses have been administered, according to the vaccination dashboard of the Federal Ministry of Health and the Robert Koch Institute (RKI).
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