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Family doctors in Germany should routinely start vaccinations against the coronavirus immediately after Easter.

Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) and the prime ministers of the federal states decided on Friday at a conference call.

Additional vaccination doses were also agreed for four federal states with external borders with France and the Czech Republic and for Thuringia, which is close to the border.

Merkel then announced that the deliberations of the federal and state governments on Monday would be about taking back the easing of the past few days.

"We see that the situation is developing very difficult," she says.

For this purpose, the withdrawal of openings at an incidence of over 100 has been agreed.

"Unfortunately, we will also have to use this emergency brake." She would have wished that this would not be necessary.

“But that won't be possible,” she emphasizes.

Because of the initially small quantities of vaccine available, vaccination in general practitioners' practices will only start slowly.

The decision paper mentions about one vaccination appointment per week.

Converted to around 50,000 general practitioners in Germany, this means around 20 vaccination doses per practice - a total of around one million vaccination doses.

In the last week of April, however, almost 3.2 million vaccine doses are expected to go to general practitioners' practices.

The possibility is foreseen for countries to declare by next Monday that they will not participate.

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"We want - and from April we can also - become faster and more flexible," said Merkel after the deliberations.

“The motto is: vaccinate, vaccinate, vaccinate.” Vaccination centers and medical practices should be combined with one another.

The vaccination centers should reliably receive 2.25 million doses per week in the future - the excess amount will then go to the doctor's offices.

There it should remain with the current prioritization with the focus on high-risk patients.

"But it can be used flexibly."

Five federal states receive extra vaccination doses

It was also agreed that five federal states should receive additional vaccination doses to protect against the entry of mutated coronaviruses by commuters from neighboring states.

This affects the Saarland and Rhineland-Palatinate with their border with France as well as Bavaria, Saxony and Thuringia due to the high number of infections in the Czech Republic.

According to the decision, Bavaria is to receive 100,000 additional doses of vaccine, Saxony 100,000, Saarland 80,000, Thuringia 30,000 and Rhineland-Palatinate 20,000 doses.

That makes a total of 330,000 cans.

This vaccine is said to come from the additional delivery of 580,000 doses from the manufacturer Biontech / Pfizer, which this manufacturer has promised.

The remaining 250,000 additional doses are planned for the general practitioners' practices in the week after Easter.