Immoral offers
Vaccination tourism: spray tour in the sun?
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If nothing works here, just get the corona vaccinations while on vacation? This is what tour operators offer. But there is a catch.
Most of us are waiting for our corona vaccination and the long-awaited next vacation. So how about combining the two? The first thing that caused a stir in January was a British private club with a corresponding offer: Members should be able to get vaccinated for 45,000 euros on a luxury trip to Dubai.
While it is still unclear in Germany when the younger population will be vaccinated, Corona-stricken tour operators are also smelling a new business model in this country: vaccination prices.
“Unethical Business Model”?
The operator “Fit Reisen” announced at the beginning of the year that it would offer such trips. Namely in countries whose populations will soon be vaccinated and which therefore have vaccine left. As possible targets were Israel, the Seychelles, Great Britain and the United Arab Emirates called.
The outrage was great. Israel immediately refused to vaccinate tourists, and the SPD health expert Karl Lauterbach spoke on WDR of an “unethical business model.” Leftover doses should instead be given to poorer countries that could not afford the vaccine.
In the meantime, “Fit Reisen” has been backed up with the following reason: “With the greater availability of corona vaccines and the sharp increase in delivery volumes planned for April, we are now assuming that these vaccine prices cannot make a significant contribution to the local pandemic fight. For this reason, we are currently not pursuing any further plans to offer vaccination leave abroad. ”
On a syringe with Sputnik-V to Moscow
What sounds more like an agent thriller than relaxation, the Norwegian tour operator “World Visitor” also organizes for German customers: Russia trips in which Sputnik-V is inoculated. The offer at Meine-impfreise.com ranges from immunizations in the transit area of the airports of Moscow and St. Petersburg to trips with a three-week stay in Turkey, where both vaccinations are administered at the beginning and end of the trip in Russia.
The Austrian publisher Christian W. Mucha also relies on Russia – under the slogan “First come. First go. Freedom for you. “But unfortunately you cannot travel at the moment, he writes on his website Impfreisen.at, because the European Medicines Agency (EMA) has not yet certified the Russian vaccine. And this approval is important. After all, they want to “guarantee that your vaccination is entered in an internationally recognized vaccination certificate. Only then will you be able to move freely in the future.”
Practical problems with vaccination prices
Apart from the morally questionable decision to press ahead with the vaccination sequence just because you can afford it, there are also practical problems with vaccination tourism to Russia: Entry is currently prohibited for German holidaymakers.
“World Visitors” advertises to obtain the necessary official invitation from the Russian Interior Ministry. In addition, however, Russia is classified as a risk area by the Federal Foreign Office, so that returning travelers would have to adhere to a ten-day quarantine. Such obstacles are likely to exist in other countries as well.
Another problem: When vaccines that are not approved in the EU are inoculated, there is no entitlement to compensation according to the Vaccination Damage Act if something goes wrong. Waiting for your turn seems like a better option at the moment for many reasons.
Sources: editorial network Germany, Frankfurter Neue Presse, Touristik aktuell, Fit Reisen, World Visitors, Impfreisen.at