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VACCINE

How many people have been vaccinated against Covid so far in Germany?

Experts say the key to getting ahead of variants is vaccinating people. Where does Germany's vaccine rollout stand right now?

Published: 26 May 2021 18:01 CEST
How many people have been vaccinated against Covid so far in Germany?
A doctor in Dresden vaccinating a patient. Photo: picture alliance/dpa/dpa-Zentralbild | Robert Michael

How many people have been vaccinated so far?

Overall 40.8 percent (33.9 million people) of the German population has received at least one jab against coronavirus. Meanwhile 14.8 percent (12.3 million people) have been fully vaccinated, according to the latest data. 

The share of second jabs in the total daily doses administered is higher than ever before, according to the Robert Koch Institute (RKI).

The newest data showed that 595,125 people were given a jab on Tuesday – and 339,751 of those – 57 percent – were for second jabs or one shot if it was the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, providing full vaccination. 

At the same time, the total number of shots administered was significantly lower (31 percent) compared to the previous week. A total of 867,044 injections were delivered into arms on Wednesday May 19th. 

The slower days could be a hangover from Germany’s long weekend for Pentecost. Vaccinations got off to a slow start because of the Monday public holiday.

The vaccination campaign in Germany reached its previous peak on May 12th, with 1.4 million shots administered in one day. 

READ ALSO: Can Germany keep the Covid incidence rate under the 50 mark?

Why is it important to inoculate quickly?

Experts say the threat of variants makes it very important to protect people as much as possible by vaccinating them. 

High profile virologist Christian Drosten said on his ‘Coronavirus Update’ podcast on Tuesday that Germany was on the right track when it comes to the inoculation campaign. 

At the moment the country is in a transitional phase, he said. With regard to the variant discovered in India (B.1.617), Drosten emphasised, “You simply have to vaccinate as quickly as possible. That’s the best thing you can do.”

Germany’s campaign had got off to a sluggish start at the end of December 2020 which was put down to EU-wide supply issues for vaccines, as well as bureaucratic hurdles – perhaps caused by different state procedures – and the inflexible vaccination prioritisation list.

However, the rate of vaccinations has picked up speed since early April, giving hope of a momentum that will continue as the country begins to come out of the third wave. 

Since the start of the campaign, Germany has been following a strict priority list on who receives the vaccine first, starting with the elderly, most vulnerable and those whose jobs expose them to Covid. 

But from June 7th, the vaccine priority list is to be lifted throughout Germany, opening it up to everyone over the age of 16. It could even be lifted in some federal states slightly earlier. 

There are concerns, however, after reports emerged that people in priority groups are still not receiving vaccines in some parts of Germany. 

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VACCINE

Vaccine scramble: How Spaniards want Covid jabs more than other Europeans

Whilst the EU warns that unused doses due to vaccine scepticism are piling up, Spaniards of all ages want to achieve immunity against Covid-19 as soon as possible, the data shows. 

Published: 12 July 2021 10:38 CEST
Vaccine scramble: How Spaniards want Covid jabs more than other Europeans
People queue to get the vaccine in Barcelona. Photo: Lluis Gené/AFP

In Spain, where the Covid-19 rollout has gone from one of the slowest in the EU to currently one of the fastest, pretty much everyone wants to get vaccinated. 

With priority groups almost fully immunised, Spain is still beating daily records with 600,000 to 700,000 doses administered every day. 

The spike in cases among the country’s young population has led several regions to bring forward jabs for teens and twenty-somethings ahead of people in their thirties.

Despite the apparent lack of concern for the pandemic witnessed  in packed squares and streets over the past weeks, young people who have been able to take advantage of the vaccine offer have headed en masse to the vaccination centres. 

When an Asturian youth called Ana Santos told a local newspaper that “after the elderly, it should be our turn to get vaccinated as it’s not as if people in their forties go out, is it?”, her comments went down like a tonne of bricks among this age group, who demanded it was their turn to reach full immunisation first. 

Vaccine scepticism hasn’t been a problem for Spain as it has been for other countries, with President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen launching a warning recently that vaccine supplies are piling up, even though Brussels has reached its target of providing enough doses to fully vaccinate 70 percent of EU adults.

“If we look at the statistics, more and more doses remain unused,” von der Leyen told journalists in Strasbourg.

“This is linked to the fact that there is a greater distribution of vaccines, but in part also due to doubts about vaccination,” adding that it was crucial to reach the most sceptical parts of the population” in the face of the “worrying” presence of the Delta variant.

“Traditionally in Spain, we have had much less resistance or rejection towards vaccines, that’s always been the case,” vaccine expert at the Spanish Association of Pediatrics (AEP) Ángel Hernández-Merino told 20minutos. 

“In any vaccination programme, it’s vital to count on the population being willing to accept the vaccination”.

A June 2021 Eurobarometer study found that 49 percent of people in Spain want to get vaccinated “as soon as possible”, the highest rate in the entire EU (32 percent EU average). 

Whereas an average of 9 percent of EU citizens don’t ever want to get vaccinated, the rate in Spain is 4 percent.  Around 63 percent of Spaniards told Eurobarometer that they couldn’t understand why people are hesitant to get vaccinated and 71 percent said Covid vaccines are the only way for the pandemic to end. 

In Belgium, around a third of the population doesn’t want to get vaccinated.

In other countries where in the earlier stages of the Covid vaccination campaign it seemed  that available doses were easily used up it’s now becoming evident that sprinting through the age groups doesn’t guarantee that everyone is being vaccinated. 

Germany, the UK and the US, all seen as examples to Spain of how to quickly immunise a population, have all seen their campaigns slow down due to hesitancy and the summer holidays.

Spain’s Health Ministry doesn’t give data on how many people have rejected the vaccine and why, but stats do show that already more than half of the population (57.5 percent) have at least one dose and 43.3 percent are fully vaccinated. 

The Spanish government has stuck to its objective of vaccinating 70 percent of the country’s 47 million people before the end of August, even though it did fall short of its June target by more than half a million doses. 

Rather than vaccine scepticism, what’s been holding up Spain’s inoculation campaign have been doubts over the administration of second AstraZeneca vaccines and the decision to keep a reserve in case the country experienced delivery setbacks as it has in the past, with 2.9 million doses in storage reported in late June.

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