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German GPs ‘opting out’ of giving Covid vaccinations due to aggressive demand

Some GPs in Germany are reportedly opting out of administering vaccines due to the often aggressive demand and rush for a jab.

German GPs 'opting out' of giving Covid vaccinations due to aggressive demand
Photo: picture alliance/dpa/dpa-Zentralbild | Matthias Bein

Due to high tensions and a mass rush of people wanting to be vaccinated, medical staff at their limits, according to an association representing doctors in a part of western Germany.

And some family doctors are pulling out of the vaccination rollout.

“We now have a dangerous development: numerous GP practices are opting out of the vaccination system,” chairman of the North Rhine GP association, Oliver Funken, told the Rheinische Post newspaper.

The GPs were experiencing an extremely aggressive mood as the demand for vaccines increases, said Funken. At the moment, phones in practices are constantly ringing, and GPs are having difficulties keeping up a regular supply of vaccines.

The head of the association also referred to the heavy workload for those working in doctor offices.

“Of course we want to help the population, but we also have to keep the welfare of the employees in mind,” said Funken. “And also the continued existence of the practice.”

He added that it was not acceptable for staff to feel they have to opt out due to the chaotic situation and because they can’t cope with the mass influx.

Germany began allowing GPs to vaccinate patients starting in April, and has seen its campaign pick up in speed since then

READ ALSO: ‘Mood is getting more aggressive’: Thousands in Germany caught skipping the line for a Covid-19 vaccine

New freedoms for the vaccinated increasing demand

Germany will lift its Covid-19 vaccine priority list and start offering jabs to all adults from June 7th.

However, several German states, including Berlin, Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria, have already gone ahead and scrapped their priority lists from this week, but only in GPs or specialists.

Some people are visiting a doctor and demanding a shot, Funken told DPA.

The mood has become more acute the closer the holidays come – and the more freedoms beckon. “People want to belong to the three groups: recovered from coronavirus, vaccinated or tested,” Funken explained.

As The Local has been reporting, Germany eased some Covid-19 restrictions this month for fully vaccinated people and those who’ve recovered from coronavirus. For instance, these groups do not have to quarantine after travel unless they are returning from a ‘virus variant area of concern’, such as India.

New travel rules also mean that people who test negatively for Covid-19 do not have to quarantine when they return from some countries.

READ ALSO: Germany’s new relaxed and testing rules for travel

Chairman of the World Medical Association, Frank Ulrich Montgomery also raised concerns about lifting the priority list.

“The GPs are overburdened by the removal of prioritisation,” he told Deutschlandfunk radio on Wednesday. “Now it is also up to the citizens not to call practices all at once and immediately.”

“The mood in the practices is not good,” Anke Richter-Scheer, chairwoman of the general practitioners’ association Westfalen-Lippe, told broadcaster WDR.

The shortage of vaccines is felt first and foremost by the teams in the doctors’ practices. “They have to put off impatient and sometimes angry patients,” Richter-Scheer said.

The head of the North Rhine GP association Funken hopes that additional supplies will ease the situation at the end of the month.

However, he has concerns about the summer. During the holiday months, bottlenecks are looming as many GPs and their staff will go on holiday. “We have to assume that 30 percent of the doctors’ practices will close for one or two weeks during the summer holidays,” Funken said.

300,000 vaccinations per week

The Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians of Westphalia-Lippe said about 80 percent of GPs and 20 percent of specialists in the area are participating in the vaccination campaign.

A spokesperson said there had been individual cases in which doctors had decided to stop ordering vaccines.

In the Westphalia-Lippe region alone, about 300,000 vaccine doses are administered in the practices every week. The number of doses has remained about the same, but more practices are coming forward to give out shots.

In Germany 38.1 percent of the population has received at least one vaccine dose, and 11.9 percent are fully vaccinated.

On Tuesday May 18th, 828,213 jabs were administered to people across the country. In recent weeks, Germany has broken European records for the number of shots given out in one day.

Member comments

  1. Absolute dereliction of duty to the doctors to decide to opt out of administering shots during an emergency situation. Germanys rollout of the vaccine has been less than poor, and when it finally starts to get some steam doctors want to quit. I will concede this is not an issue the doctors created through, this is a result of ineffective policy making and irrational rules imposed by the federal and local governments. I.e. berlin to eat OUTSIDE you need a rapid test… or just get it to go and sit on some grass near by.

    1. There should be more vaccination centres, full stop. Doctors are busy enough anyway with other illnesses. Dortmund, for instance, has ONE vaccination centre, way south (Where many of the people with money live.). If you live in the North, where half the population does, you have a long journey to get there. There is a big Hospital in the North. Did they try and set up a second centre there? No, of course not. As a result we are WAY behind on vaccinations here. I am truly disgusted.

  2. What exactly is so hard about this? In the US every Walgreens and CVS pharmacy does Pfizer shots. Why can’t they get the pharmacies/apothekes here involved? The US has almost 330 million people… Ridiculous.

    1. The difference is in the usa they understand the concept of urgency. Here they would rather save a euro per shot and be at the back of the line and take weekends off. Lastly, bureaucracy, just read the local story of the high occurance region outreach clinic and you’ll see they care more about paperwork than saving people.

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HEALTH

Could there be a new wave of Covid-19 in Germany this autumn?

It’s back again: amid sinking temperatures, the incidence of Covid-19 has been slowly rising in Germany. But is this enough to merit worrying about the virus?

Could there be a new wave of Covid-19 in Germany this autumn?

More people donning face masks in supermarkets, friends cancelling plans last minute due to getting sick with Covid-19. We might have seen some of those familiar reminders recently that the coronavirus is still around, but could there really be a resurgence of the virus like we experienced during the pandemic years?

According to virologists, the answer seems to be ‘maybe’: since July, the number of people newly infected with Covid-19 has been slowly rising from a very low level.

According to the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), nine people per 100,000 inhabitants became newly infected in Germany last week. A year ago, there were only around 270 reported cases.

Various Corona variants are currently on the loose in the country. According to the RKI,  the EG.5 (also called Eris) and XBB.1.16 lines were each detected in the week ending September 3rd with a share of just under 23 percent. 

The highly mutated variant BA.2.86 (Pirola), which is currently under observation by the World Health Organisation (WHO), also arrived in the country this week, according to RKI. 

High number of unreported case

The RKI epidemiologists also warned about a high number of unreported cases since hardly any testing is done. They pointed out that almost half of all registered sewage treatment plants report an increasing viral load in wastewater tests.

The number of hospital admissions has also increased slightly, but are still a far cry from the occupation rate amid the pandemic. Last week it was two per 100,000 inhabitants. In the intensive care units, only 1.2 percent of all beds are occupied by Covid-19 patients.

Still, a good three-quarters (76.4 percent) of people in Germany have been vaccinated at least twice and thus have basic immunity, reported RKI. 

Since Monday, doctors’ offices have been vaccinating with the adapted vaccine from Biontech/Pfizer, available to anyone over 12 years old, with a vaccine for small children set to be released the following week and one for those between 5 and 11 to come out October 2nd.

But Health Minister Karl Lauterbach has so far only recommended that people over 60 and those with pre-existing conditions get vaccinated.

READ ALSO: EXPLAINED: Who should get a Covid jab this autumn in Germany?

“The pandemic is over, the virus remains,” he said. “We cannot predict the course of coming waves of corona, but it is clear that older people and people with pre-existing conditions remain at higher risk of becoming severely ill from Covid-19”

The RKI also recommended that people with a cold voluntarily wear a mask. Anyone exhibiting cough, cold, sore throat or other symptoms of a respiratory illness should voluntarily stay at home for three to five days and take regular corona self-tests. 

However, further measures such as contact restrictions are not necessary, he said.

One of many diseases

As of this autumn, Covid-19 could be one of many respiratory diseases. As with influenza, there are no longer absolute infection figures for coronavirus.

Saarbrücken pharmacist Thorsten Lehr told German broadcaster ZDF that self-protection through vaccinations, wearing a mask and getting tested when symptoms appear are prerequisites for surviving the Covid autumn well. 

Only a new, more aggressive mutation could completely turn the game around, he added.

On April 7th of this year, Germany removed the last of its over two-year long coronavirus restrictions, including mask-wearing in some public places.

READ ALSO: German doctors recommend Covid-19 self-tests amid new variant

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