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Great Britain started the first corona vaccinations last week, Canada and the USA will follow these days.

It will soon be the case in Germany too.

Several hundred vaccination centers are set up so that not only can vaccinations be carried out quickly, but also the priority list with old people and people in need of care is worked through in the correct order at the top.

Many younger people would also like to be vaccinated, but have to be patient for the time being.

Quite a few people also state in surveys that they - at least for the time being - do not want to be vaccinated.

A survey by the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) in May showed that only around 70 percent of adults in Germany would voluntarily be vaccinated against the corona virus, provided a vaccine without any significant side effects is available.

The Compass survey, which is representative of those eligible to vote with online access, now shows a similar picture for December.

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Currently, around 30 percent do not want to be vaccinated - and that is largely not because this group was already infected and can assume to be immune.

Rather, a third of those surveyed who do not want to be vaccinated believe that the disease "will not really be serious".

However, at around 85 percent, the proportion of those who are “very” or “very” concerned about possible side effects is much larger.

Focus on effective persuasion strategy

A little less than 20 percent of all respondents are still unsure about their decision for or against a vaccination.

A good 50 percent state that they are “certain” or “likely” to be vaccinated.

For almost everyone who wants to be vaccinated, protecting their own health plays an “important” role (95 percent), but protecting families and relatives (98 percent) is even more important.

What does it mean for fighting the pandemic if 30 percent of the population does not want to be vaccinated?

If everyone else were actually vaccinated, the much-cited “herd immunity” would just be achieved.

However, it is very unlikely that everyone who wants to be vaccinated, or at least does not rule it out, will actually be vaccinated.

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Especially since it is not possible to vaccinate with certain previous illnesses.

In this respect, the question arises as to how the willingness to vaccinate can be increased if the obligation to vaccinate remains politically excluded.

In the next few weeks, politics must primarily focus on an effective persuasion strategy.

There is still some time, because at the moment there is no vaccination, and the renewed hard lockdown should at least temporarily reduce the number of acutely infected people.

But there will come a time after the lockdown when vaccination will and must be carried out on a large scale in order to contain the pandemic in the long term.

The return of freedom to everyday life

Much depends on communication.

It is not about hiding the vaccination risks.

However, they should be put in a comprehensible relationship to the risks of infection and the personal and social benefits should also be emphasized.

These risks of Covid 19 disease do not only exist if they are severe for a short time and, in the worst case, death.

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Rather, there is growing empirical evidence that long-term damage can occur in a significant number of patients after acute infection.

This can be made clear with modern methods of risk communication.

Not by dealing with probabilities that many people don't know what to do with, but by showing, for example, how many out of 1,000 people die of or with Covid-19, how many are acutely seriously ill and how many can expect long-term damage.

And then contrast these numbers with the likely numbers of vaccine damage.

But now it is first of all that we as a society accept the lockdown and above all stick to the contact reduction.

This is the only way to return to a new normal in the spring and to gradually return the much-missed freedoms to our everyday lives.