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Berlin (dpa) - The corona vaccinations in Germany are expected to pick up speed this month and take place at the beginning of April, especially in doctors' practices.
The federal and state ministers agreed on the vaccination start by the resident doctors in around four weeks at the health ministerial conference on Monday, as the German Press Agency in Berlin learned from participants.
According to the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians (KBV), 75,000 general practitioners and specialists are available in Germany for vaccination.
Vice Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) said on ZDF: "We have to vaccinate millions every week."
This already applies at the end of March.
"There will be up to ten million vaccinations a week."
According to Commission head Ursula von der Leyen, the EU states will receive 100 million vaccine doses every month from April.
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In Germany, the vaccine is supposed to be delivered to doctors' practices in the normal way via wholesalers and pharmacies.
The bureaucratic effort for the practices should be reduced to a minimum, it said.
The vaccination centers are to remain in place for the time being.
Agreed appointments there should be retained.
According to the Federal Ministry of Health, 2.5 million people in Germany had been fully vaccinated by Sunday.
That's three percent of the population.
5.2 million people have received at least one dose of vaccine.
The federal and state governments had already decided on Wednesday that with increasing amounts of vaccination doses, general practitioners and specialist practices should generally be included in the vaccination campaign from the end of March / beginning of April.
The prioritization of individual population groups should be retained, but then the doctors should decide for themselves who will receive the vaccination on the basis of the recommendations.
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The head of the Standing Vaccination Commission, Thomas Mertens, said in an interview that there had been good arguments to only involve the practices when there was enough vaccine.
For example, some doctors might find it difficult to give "their patients" the correct sequence of vaccinations.
Corona vaccine supplies are still not running smoothly.
Von der Leyen told Wirtschaftswoche on Monday that the British-Swedish manufacturer Astrazeneca had “delivered less than ten percent of the amount ordered to the EU in the period from December to March”.
Von der Leyen thus justified Italy's ban on exporting 250,000 Astrazeneca vaccine doses to Australia.
Von der Leyen did not rule out further export bans, according to "Wirtschaftswoche": "That was not an isolated case."
Von der Leyen mentioned the number of 100 million vaccine doses from various manufacturers as of April in the “Stuttgarter Zeitung” and the “Stuttgarter Nachrichten”.
The EU Commission President pointed out that this will be twice as much as in March.
However, the information is somewhat more cautious than previous estimates.
It was said that the expected 300 million vaccine doses could be added to deliveries from the manufacturer Johnson & Johnson in the second quarter.
In any case, much more vaccine is forecast to be available soon.
In mathematical terms, Germany receives almost a fifth of the EU vaccination doses, which means almost 20 million doses per month in the future.
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According to the KBV, up to five million vaccinations a week could be carried out if 50,000 doctor's offices administered 20 vaccine doses each day.
If there is enough vaccine, according to model calculations by the KBV, it may be possible to create full vaccination protection for the entire population on August 1st.
Bavaria's Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) spoke out in favor of giving young people access to vaccines soon, such as students at universities.
So far, vaccines from Pfizer / Biontech, Moderna and Astrazeneca have been approved in the EU.
On March 11, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) is expected to recommend the approval of the vaccine from the US manufacturer Johnson & Johnson.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210308-99-741131 / 2
National vaccination strategy
Federal government on Corona
Conference of Health Ministers