SPD general secretary Lars Klingbeil speaks of "chaos" at the start of vaccination

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SPD General Secretary Lars Klingbeil has criticized the organization of the Corona vaccination start in Germany and accused Health Minister Jens Spahn (CDU) of failures.

"I find the chaos around the vaccination start very annoying," said Klingbeil of the "Rheinische Post".

Spahn spoke of some federal mess and pointed to the federal states.

“The minister himself had months to prepare the planned vaccination start.

He has been given sufficient skills for this. "

It is the job of the Federal Minister of Health to ensure smooth organization, said Klingbeil.

"If the impression now arises that the state does not have this task under control, that does not exactly increase confidence in vaccination."

Spahn had promised a significant expansion of the corona vaccinations for the new year.

After the approval of the serum from Moderna, which is expected for the beginning of January, he is assuming a "rapid processing" of the approval application from Astra Zeneca, whose preparation was approved for vaccination in Great Britain on Wednesday, said Spahn in Berlin.

At the same time, he called for restraint at New Year's celebrations.

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In addition to the expected approval of further vaccines, Spahn also referred to the planned start of another production facility for the preparation from Biontech and Pfizer, which is already being administered in Germany, in February.

"If everything works out, we will be able to vaccinate the area faster than expected," said Spahn.

In the first three days since the official start of the corona vaccination campaign, according to current information from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), more than 78,000 people in Germany received the immunization.

Most vaccinations have so far been given in nursing homes, said Spahn.

The minister admitted that there were a few problems at the start of the campaign: “Yes, it jerks in one place or another,” he said.

Overall, however, the "largest vaccination campaign in the history of Germany has started successfully".

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Berlin's Senator for Health Dilek Kalayci (SPD) had previously accused the federal government of being poorly organized in the distribution of the corona vaccine.

For Berlin there will be no further vaccine against the new corona virus in the first week of the new year, Kalayci told the German press agency.

"We have now received the message from the Federal Ministry of Health that the delivery in the first calendar week will be canceled without replacement."

It should not continue until January 11th.

"That is now causing us great difficulties, as we have made our plans based on these commitments." The schedule for the start of vaccination for people over 80 who live at home is getting a first dent.

Because Berlin was originally supposed to receive 29,250 additional doses of vaccine from January 4th.

“We would have needed that to be able to start with the over 80s.

Of course we can't do that now because these vaccine doses are missing. ”There is no replacement for them later either.

Therefore, from Wednesday, people over 90 years of age would initially be invited by letter to the vaccinations in the new centers - planned for January 11th at the earliest.

"If we don't get the priority groups vaccinated quickly enough, that's a problem," said Kalayci.

The vaccine quantities planned for the beginning of January were not sufficient for nursing and clinic staff either.

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In Brandenburg, the delivery of vaccines will also pause at the beginning of the year.

“The state of Brandenburg will also not receive any vaccine delivery in the first week of January,” the Ministry of Health announced on Twitter.

Minister Ursula Nonnemacher (Greens) said that 19,500 vaccine doses per week are planned for Brandenburg.

This means that around 10,000 people can receive vaccination protection if they need two vaccinations.

So far, 39,000 vaccine doses have been delivered and around 1,550 people have been vaccinated, said Nonnemacher.

First of all, people over the age of 80 as well as residents and employees of nursing homes and the staff in hospitals receive protection.

Hard criticism from Bavaria

Bavaria is also demanding more predictability and reliability from the federal government in the delivery of corona vaccines.

In particular, the state government criticized on Wednesday that a delivery planned for the first week of January is also canceled at short notice.

In the first week of January - contrary to the previous promise - Bavaria will probably not receive any vaccine delivery, said Health Minister Melanie Huml (CSU).

“It is incomprehensible to me how a complete delivery can simply be omitted with such high numbers of infections.

The vaccination doses actually promised were already firmly planned in our vaccination centers. ”According to the ministry, Bavaria will not receive weekly deliveries of 107,250 vaccination doses from the federal government until January 11th.

The three federal states will probably not be left alone with their scarcity.

As "Business Insider" reports with reference to an internal document from the Ministry of Health, there will be no new vaccine deliveries from Biontech before January 11th.