To ward off the next wave of diseases in the corona pandemic, the Standing Vaccination Commission STIKO has appealed to the adult population under 60 to get vaccinated urgently.

According to this expert committee at the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), many more people from these groups must be encouraged to take the injections than before.

The current focus on children and adolescents, however, is going in the wrong direction, said STIKO chairman Thomas Mertens of the FAZ. He referred to figures from the RKI, according to which more than 30 million out of 83 million inhabitants are still not vaccinated.

9 million of these belong to the group of children under the age of 12 for whom there is no approved vaccine.

Christian Geinitz

Business correspondent in Berlin

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When asked who the others are, Mertens said: “The decisive remainder are the eighteen to fifty-nine year olds. This is where the fourth wave decides and not among the twelve to seventeen year olds. ”The scientific modeling showed that very clearly, according to the doctor and professor of virology. Mertens urged the target group to be insightful and responsible: "The eighteen to fifty-nine year olds should recognize that it is not about their individual protection, but about our society, about freedoms, about economic development and so on." Immunize survived illness against the coronavirus: "Those who have recovered contribute to 'herd immunity' just as much as those who have been vaccinated."

The RKI models mentioned by Mertens specify which vaccination rates must be achieved so that the health care system can cope with the feared fourth wave in autumn and winter, so that, for example, enough beds are available in normal and intensive care units.

According to information from the Federal Ministry of Health under Jens Spahn (CDU), which refers to these calculations, it makes a decisive difference in maintaining medical and nursing care if the vaccination rate for over-sixty-year-olds is above 90 percent and for those aged twelve to fifty-nine if possible is over 75 percent. "

Vaccination campaign stalled

For the older group, the goal seems achievable: According to the ministry, more than 85 percent of those aged 60 and over are currently vaccinated at least once and almost 80 percent are fully vaccinated. It looks quite different in the questionable cohort mentioned by Mertens. Between the ages of 12 and 59, only 58 percent have received at least one injection, and just 48 percent are fully immunized. These proportions are lower than in the general population. According to the latest data from the RKI, 51.8 million people in Germany have now received at least one vaccine dose, 62.3 percent of all residents. 45.3 million are fully protected, which corresponds to a share of 54.5 percent.

The vaccination campaign has stalled. Instead of significantly more than a million syringes, as was the case in June, only 350,000 are used a day, a third of the previous amount. In order to increase the quota, the federal and state health ministers have decided to offer the 4.5 million children and adolescents from 12 to 17 years of age a vaccination offer. So far, around 10 percent of them have received an injection, around 450,000 people. The preparations from BioNTech / Pfizer and Moderna are approved for this group in the EU.

However, a dispute has broken out over child vaccination, not least with reference to the STIKO. Because of the low risk of illness in minors and the lack of data on possible side effects, the experts do not recommend immunization at this age in principle, but only in exceptional cases; For example, for people who are previously ill or if the minors live with people at risk who should not be vaccinated, including pregnant women and the seriously ill.

On Friday the RKI published a model calculation of the success of the vaccine use. It speaks of an “outstanding benefit of the Covid 19 vaccination in the first 6.5 months of the vaccination campaign in Germany in 2021”. In the third corona wave, an estimated 38,300 deaths were prevented in this way. 76,600 people did not have to go to inpatient treatment because of the vaccinations, and almost 20,000 cases in intensive care units were avoided. In total, more than 706,000 fewer cases of infection were reported than would have been the case without vaccinations.