Start in March too ambitious: Spahn is under pressure because of rapid tests

Wednesday, February 24, 2021

Too ambitious start in March
Spahn is under pressure because of rapid tests

"Testing promises freedom," says FDP boss Lindner, but the free quick tests for all citizens are not going as fast as planned and hoped for. Health Minister Spahn is due to speak in the Bundestag today.

In view of the persistently high number of infections, calls for free corona rapid tests to be carried out soon are getting louder for everyone. At an online event of the "Bild" newspaper, Bavaria's Prime Minister Markus Söder criticized that in Germany, approvals "always took so long". He hopes that after the postponed start of the submission of rapid tests there will be a solution next week.

The FDP called for Austria to be taken as a role model. This should also allow the corona rules to be relaxed more quickly. Health Minister Jens Spahn wants to provide information in the Bundestag this Wednesday. The CDU politician had originally announced that from March 1st an offer would be made for all citizens to be tested free of charge by trained staff with rapid antigen tests – for example in test centers, practices or pharmacies. However, this is only to be discussed at the federal-state consultations on March 3rd.

CSU boss Söder said that a lot can be made possible with many rapid tests. "If we had 300 million a month for Germany, then we could enable much more freedom in many areas." The FDP proposed to pave the way for gradual easing with a regulation modeled on Austria. A corresponding application should be submitted to the Bundestag this week. Party leader Christian Lindner told the "Bild" newspaper: "Testing promises freedom – together with masks, air purifiers, digital tracking of infections and the protection of vulnerable groups."

Astrazeneca remains slow

With a change in the vaccination sequence, the partial opening of daycare centers and schools should be better protected from this Wednesday: employees in daycare centers, day care centers as well as primary and special schools should already be able to receive a vaccination. The amended vaccination ordinance is to be published in the Federal Gazette on Wednesday. For these vaccinations, hundreds of thousands of vaccine doses from the manufacturer Astrazeneca, which have not been used until now, are likely to come into question.

According to the Ministry of Health, more than 1.4 million doses were delivered – according to the Robert Koch Institute, however, only 212,000 doses were injected. Recently there were reports that nurses do not want to be vaccinated because of its somewhat lower effectiveness.

Astrazeneca may now face further delivery bottlenecks. Company representatives would have reported possible production downtimes in Europe to the European Union for the second quarter, said an EU representative in Brussels. But these amounts could theoretically be made up for by the manufacturer's other vaccine factories. Astrazeneca announced on request that they wanted to fulfill the contract for the second quarter according to the latest forecast.

Meanwhile, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen promised that the situation would "improve noticeably" in the coming months. Europe will make up for its deficit compared to countries like Great Britain, said the CDU politician to the "Augsburger Allgemeine". "We're catching up."

Vaccination Committee for Flexibility

The chairman of the Standing Vaccination Commission (Stiko), Thomas Mertens, spoke out in favor of pragmatic solutions for leftover vaccines. With the Astrazeneca fabric, many cans were left behind every day, said Mertens of the Funke media group. "It is imperative that all vaccination centers have lists here that determine who has a turn when there are doses left over." "Suitable candidates from the following priority groups" can also be preferred.

The Association of Towns and Municipalities is now calling for more speed with the introduction of digital vaccination certificates. Otherwise, the "same problems as now with vaccination at a snail's pace" threatened, chief executive Gerd Landsberg told the Funke newspapers. According to a representative survey by the Norstat Institute, 34 percent of German citizens do not want to be vaccinated against Corona. The survey was carried out on behalf of the Bertelsmann Foundation.