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The suspension of vaccinations with AstraZeneca's vaccine is a serious setback for the federal government's vaccination strategy.

In the past week, around 40 percent of the vaccinations were done with this vaccine.

The already very slow pace of vaccinations will be reduced again.

It is doubtful that the promise that everyone will receive at least one vaccination by the end of summer can be kept in this way.

Even if the vaccinations with AstraZeneca should start again soon, the willingness of the population to be vaccinated with it is likely to have decreased significantly.

In the end, vaccinations are the only viable way out of the pandemic.

The collateral damage from not having vaccinations is likely to be great.

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The decision to completely suspend vaccination with AstraZeneca will prove to be a grave mistake with grave consequences.

In Germany, seven cases of cerebral vein thrombosis have been known to date that are temporally related to the vaccination.

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) has so far reported 41 cases of coagulation disorders out of more than five million vaccinations with AstraZeneca.

Even if this is more than usual, the risk is 0.0008 percent.

With many other drugs, the risks are significantly higher.

If all citizens in Germany were vaccinated with AstraZeneca - which is not going to happen - we would have to extrapolate around 650 of these complications.

If 30 to 40 percent of the population were vaccinated with it, there would be around 200 to 260 cases.

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The risk that people who have not been vaccinated will develop corona and that the disease will develop into a severe course is significantly higher.

In the past seven days alone, over 110,000 people in Germany have been infected with the corona virus.

If the infection ultimately leads to death in just one percent of them, that would be more than 1,000 people - and that only affects those infected in one week.

In the face of the looming third wave, reducing the vaccination rate is hardly understandable given the minimal risks that have now been reported.

In order to save what can be saved, the federal government should enable the following as soon as possible.

Vaccination with AstraZeneca should be made possible for everyone who wants to.

I would immediately get it vaccinated myself.

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If you prefer to wait for another vaccine and take the risk of a corona infection, you should just wait.

But there is no reason to

keep everyone

waiting - on the contrary: That is at least negligent in the face of an impending third wave.

Perhaps then we will have a lower number of brain thromboses, but we certainly have significantly more corona deaths, not to mention the prolonged cuts in basic rights and daily life.

Justus Haucap is director of the Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE) and a member of the Kronberger Kreis.

From 2008 to 2012 he was chairman of the Monopolies Commission.

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