885 soldiers are helping in the fight against Corona in the southwest

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Stuttgart (dpa / lsw) - With 885 soldiers, the Bundeswehr in Baden-Württemberg supports the authorities in the fight against the corona pandemic on a daily basis.

The majority (675) help trace contacts in 35 of the 38 health departments, according to the Baden-Württemberg State Command.

174 soldiers are used to provide logistical and medical support in four central vaccination centers, 17 for logistics in old people's and nursing homes and 19 for medical support in clinics.

A further 351 soldiers are to help in the district vaccination centers from Friday and will be called up gradually depending on the availability of the vaccine, said a spokesman in Stuttgart.

However, so far only about half of the vaccination centers in the southwest have received administrative assistance.

"With the others, the civil authorities assume that they can operate this with their own resources."

Because additional forces have to be planned for shift changes, as a substitute on days off and in the management organization, a total of around 2500 soldiers are tied up for administrative assistance in the southwest, it said.

"Supporting the civil authorities as part of fighting pandemics is a natural part of our mission," said Colonel Thomas Köhring, commander of the state command.

"The Bundeswehr will continue this support as long as we are needed and requested."

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The spokesman explained that the missions were spatially distributed all over Baden-Württemberg.

Cooperation with the municipal authorities is flexible and good across the board.

In all counties there are liaison commands made up of reservists who can keep in touch and prepare support services.

"We know each other - that helps especially in a crisis like this!"

Throughout Germany, the Bundeswehr provided up to 20,000 of the 180,000 forces as “helping hands”, the spokesman said.

Of these, 12,600 are in use as such.

The place of action is not always where the soldiers are stationed: In Baden-Württemberg, forces from Bavaria are also helping.

Anyone who works abroad, for example, is of course out of the question for Corona tasks.

This is preceded by a bureaucratic act: the civil authorities must apply for administrative assistance from the Bundeswehr if necessary.

The Bundeswehr Territorial Tasks Command decides on the application.

It will be checked whether the support service is legally permissible and whether the requested skills and resources are available in the Bundeswehr.

"Only then can the application be approved," said the spokesman.

So far, only a small number of applications to fight pandemic have been rejected, mostly because there was a lack of medical specialists.

State Command