The federal states expect a strong interest in booster vaccinations for protection against Covid-19 and see themselves adequately prepared for this.

This is the result of a survey by the FAZ among the 16 health ministries.

In the first days of the campaign, around 13,000 such injections were given there.

By the end of the year, 10 to 10.5 million is expected.

That is about a tenth of all basic immunization doses administered in Germany since the end of December.

Christian Geinitz

Business correspondent in Berlin

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The reactions to the new offers are positive, there were interested inquiries even before the start of the campaign, says Schleswig-Holstein. The country has been offering the so-called booster vaccinations since August 24th in vaccination centers and since Wednesday also in doctor's offices. In the first few days there were around 1900 of these injections, said a ministry spokesman. In the near future, personalized letters would be sent to all people aged 80 and over to inform them about vaccination options.

The background to the refreshment campaign is the advice of the Conference of Health Ministers from August and the amended Corona Vaccination Ordinance, which came into force on September 1st.

This stipulates a legal entitlement for so-called “follow-up and booster vaccinations”.

The health ministers recommend this for people in the integration assistance for the disabled, in nursing homes and in other facilities with vulnerable groups.

The offer is also aimed at those over the age of eighties, those in need of care at home, the immunocompromised or immunosuppressed as well as people who have previously only received vector vaccines of the AstraZeneca or Johnson & Johnson type.

No STIKO recommendation yet

In any case, the prerequisite is that the completed vaccination series must be at least six months ago. This means that people are currently eligible for follow-up injections who received their first full vaccination protection by March. This usually occurs two weeks after the second vaccination; in the case of the manufacturer Johnson & Johnson, one injection is sufficient. The booster vaccinations are only given with the mRNA vaccines from BioNtech / Pfizer or Moderna.

The vaccination ordinance is much more open than the decision of the health ministers. It does not further define the target groups and does not make any other specifications, so that theoretically all vaccinated persons can insist on boosting. However, the decree says that the injection intervals recommended by the Standing Vaccination Commission (STIKO) "should be adhered to". STIKO's recommendations for refreshments are not yet available; they are expected in the coming week. Schleswig-Holstein refers, however, to an assessment by the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), to which the STIKO belongs, according to which, from an immunological point of view, there is nothing to be said against follow-up vaccinations "in order to refresh a vaccine protection that has declined over time".

The regulations of the health ministers, the vaccination ordinance and the RKI are therefore sufficiently imprecise that the federal states can interpret them themselves. That is why some are using vaccination teams for the refreshments, others also use the vaccination centers until they are largely closed at the end of September. Most of them rely primarily on the resident doctors who also look after the homes.