Wednesday, November 03, 2021
Dispute over boosters for younger people
Spahn adds
From Frauke Niemeyer
Everyone wants to boost – but when it comes to who and where there is a dispute. Minister Spahn wants public offers and refreshments for everyone. The statutory health insurance physicians reject both. This creates uncertainty among those willing to vaccinate.
This is not beneficial in the middle of the fight against a deadly pandemic, which can only be won if the population helps in solidarity and on their own responsibility: There is an audible crunch between the still incumbent Health Minister Jens Spahn and the representatives of the medical profession. One of them complains that the booster vaccination is not getting up to speed and is putting pressure on it publicly. The others demand that they be allowed to do their work in peace.
In front of the press, Spahn added today in this conflict: “The speed of boosting is not enough,” he criticized and recalled that the Conference of Health Ministers (GMK) had already decided at the beginning of August that “all residents in the care facilities, as well as that Staff should receive a vaccination offer a third time “. Shortly afterwards, it was agreed that “as a precautionary measure, all over 60-year-olds in Germany would be offered appropriate vaccinations.” In the three months since the beginning of August, however, there have only been a good two million booster vaccinations in Germany. “That is clearly not enough,” said the outgoing minister.
This criticism is aimed primarily at the state governments, which for the most part – unlike the state of Berlin, for example – have not encouraged elderly citizens to use boosters by post. Vaccination experts speculate that many old people still consider themselves protected, who probably no longer are if the vaccination was more than six months ago. The demand for refresher programs is modest and inadequate to the dramatic increase in incidences and stresses in intensive care units.
In view of around 30 million people in Germany who, according to vaccine expert Leif Sander, need a refresher in a timely manner, Spahn is not only dissatisfied with the slow pace. The minister would like to significantly expand the booster offer – to younger vaccinated people.
On Tuesday, representatives of the statutory health insurance physicians had clearly positioned themselves against a refreshment for younger people in a press conference: “Now to recommend booster vaccinations indiscriminately for everyone makes no sense,” said Andreas Gassen, chairman of the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians (KBV). He referred to the relatively high rate of people who had not yet been vaccinated and emphasized that the statutory health insurance physicians adhered “very strictly” to the recommendation of the Standing Vaccination Commission (STIKO).
63-year-olds are told: “Nah”
The STIKO, on the other hand, only recommends boosting from the age of 70. According to the minister, this leads to doctors partially refusing to give younger people the third vaccination. “We get reports that 63-year-olds who want a booster vaccination are told: No!”, Said Spahn. “This is not good.” He does not understand why such a vaccination should not be possible for people who “may have a situation in which they also meet many other people and who want a booster vaccination”. “The vaccine is there, the approval is there, the findings from other countries are there, and so from my point of view it makes sense.”
Spahn does not see the conflict with the STIKO. The minister emphasized that the evaluation of data is very important. However, he sees no need on the part of doctors to limit their vaccinations to those who are recommended by the STIKO. “In a pandemic that we are currently in, it is also important to see what experience and knowledge we have from other countries.” You can see from the example of Israel that “boosting actually makes a real difference”.
And Spahn went one step further, using the example of children and adolescents: There, the vaccine was approved for children from the age of 12 at the end of May, and the STIKO then made its recommendation in mid-August. “By then, a quarter of the age group – thank God – had been vaccinated. So we were able to protect people much earlier.” And with this aim of protecting people earlier, Spahn also referred to the agreement with the state health ministers that the “public offers go into standby mode and can be quickly restarted if necessary. We are currently seeing this need when it comes to the.” Booster vaccinations go “.
This is another point that has met with disapproval from the medical community. The GKV wants to leave vaccination in the hands of the resident doctors and limit it to people over 70, nursing staff and residents for the time being. In the care facilities “the music plays on the disease,” said Gassen on Tuesday. The GKV insists on the medical principle of “doing the most important things first”.
Agreement on Thursday?
However, the statutory health insurance physicians would hardly be prevented from doing the most important thing first, namely vaccinating the elderly and vulnerable, if the younger ones were given the opportunity to be boosted in public vaccination facilities – which the doctors refuse. There is hardly any sign of an agreement in this dispute, even if both sides want to speak to each other on Thursday.
What remains is an unclear situation for those willing to vaccinate who want to be immunized a third time, but are younger than 70. As long as vaccination centers remain closed – as in most federal states – younger people must hope to find a doctor’s practice that does not adhere to the STIKO’s recommendation “very stringently”, but rather follows the arguments of the Federal Minister of Health. And which has enough capacity and vaccines so that the elderly and those in need of protection do not suffer.