Berlin The SPD, Greens and FDP want to get even more people in Germany to vaccinate and speed up booster vaccinations. For many older people, more than six months have passed since the second vaccination and the effect is waning. Therefore, the “vaccine turbo” must now be ignited, said FDP health expert Christine Aschenberg-Dugnus before an expert meeting of traffic light politicians with scientists, practitioners and experts.
You will probably not get around a job-related vaccination light, for example for the care, kitchen or cleaning staff in care facilities, said Green health politician Janosch Dahmen.
However, Aschenberg-Dugnus emphasized that the topic was sensitive. One has to be careful that if vaccination is compulsory, even more nurses “who have to be weighed in gold” do not leave their jobs.
At the meeting, ways were to be found to accelerate the so-called booster vaccinations, especially for people who are particularly at risk, and to convince “hesitants and hesitants” among the citizens of a vaccination.
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The fourth wave is spreading so strongly because there are still more than 18 million people who have not been vaccinated, the vaccination protection of those who were vaccinated early is declining and recently there has been “careless interaction with one another”, said SPD expert Sabine Dittmar. Therefore one is in a “very dramatic situation”.
The infection situation develops differently from region to region
The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) reported 48,640 new infections on Friday after the number had broken the 50,000 mark for the first time the previous day. The seven-day incidence, which indicates the number of new infections per 100,000 inhabitants within a week, rose further to 263.7.
From Saturday there should be free citizen tests again.
(Photo: AP)
However, the infection situation is developing very differently from region to region. In Saxony the incidence is 569, in Thuringia 491 and in Bavaria just under 455. As early as Thursday, the RKI called in its weekly report “urgently” to “cancel or avoid larger events if possible” and to reduce all unnecessary contacts .
In addition, the institute classified the health risk for people who were not vaccinated or only vaccinated once as “very high”. “It’s five past twelve”, the fourth wave is rolling “now with full force”, said RKI boss Lothar Wieler on Friday in a joint press conference with the executive federal health minister Jens Spahn (CDU).
Spahn stressed that more must be done to break the fourth wave. It would therefore be advisable to introduce a 2G rule plus test at public events, said Spahn. Access would then only be given to vaccinated and convalescent people who also had a negative test result.
He also thinks it is a mistake to let the epidemic situation of national scope expire on November 25, as the traffic light groups are planning, stressed Spahn. This would deprive the countries of important instruments for fighting pandemics.
Access to free corona tests
The health minister announced that citizens would have access to free tests again from Saturday. He will sign the corresponding test ordinance this Friday and he is assuming that the range of tests will gradually be expanded from the beginning of the week.
In addition, the remuneration for doctors per vaccination will be increased from 20 to 28 euros and for vaccinations at the weekend to 36 euros, said Spahn. The question of whether pharmacists should also carry out booster vaccinations, on the other hand, raises so many medical, professional and liability questions that it is certainly not a solution for the next few weeks.
Spahn does not consider a general vaccination light in Germany to be practicable. He could not imagine that the police would go door to door to check the vaccination status of citizens, said the minister. Would you then have left-wing politician Sahra Wagenknecht, who has not yet been vaccinated, taken with the police to the nearest vaccination center, asked Spahn.
Access for vaccinated people at events or in the catering trade is something else, but it must then be controlled accordingly.
More: “Compulsory vaccination through the back door”: NGG union boss rejects 2G in the workplace