Spahn announces: Prioritization for vaccination falls on June 7th

From June 7th, every interested citizen in Germany has the right to a corona vaccination without restriction.

Then nationwide, the previous prioritization, which links access to the vaccine to certain requirements such as age or previous illnesses, should fall.

Federal Minister of Health Jens Spahn (CDU) and the heads of department of the federal states agreed on this on Monday, as Spahn announced.

Because of the still limited availability of vaccines, not everyone will be able to get a vaccination appointment immediately.

"We will continue to need patience with each other," said Spahn.

"Even if we cancel the prioritization, it will not be possible to vaccinate everyone within June." However, everyone who wants to be vaccinated will receive a vaccination offer "until the summer".

Appointments that have already been agreed would not no longer be obsolete, but should be kept.

With regard to the vaccination centers, the resolution says: "The countries are at liberty to maintain the prioritization within the framework of the vaccine doses assigned to them."

In addition, at least 15 million first and second vaccinations are planned until June 7th - many of them still according to the prioritization.

Also from June 7th, company and private doctors will be routinely included in the vaccinations - from the start without prioritization.

The fact that the European Medicines Agency Ema could release BioNTech / Pfizer's vaccine for 12 to 16 year olds at the end of the month and then vaccine will then also be required for this group of people could also contribute to the expected increased need for vaccines in June.

So far, only the vaccine from BioNTech has been approved for 16 to 18 year olds.

This should also be the case for the age group from twelve.

There will be a debate as to whether there should be a special recommendation for vaccinating students, among whom the corona incidences were particularly high recently, said Spahn.

The Minister of Health did not want to commit to where the students should be vaccinated, whether in vaccination centers, schools or practices.

One would advise with five federal states with a particularly early start of the vacation how to proceed with the vaccination.

Prioritization partially already canceled

Some countries had already rushed ahead with the approval in medical practices.

In Baden-Württemberg, for example, people have been able to be vaccinated without a categorization since Monday.

According to the State Chamber of Pharmacists, only the vaccine from Moderna is not suitable for practices because of the transport.

In the vaccination centers in Baden-Württemberg, however, the prioritization is retained so that people at high risk are definitely vaccinated first.

In Bavaria, the prioritization of general practitioners should fall during the week.

Brandenburg only released priority group 3 in full.

Hessen wants to open registration for vaccinations to all citizens from June onwards.

According to the federal proposal, earlier vaccination approvals in individual countries should be able to remain in place.

With the vaccines from AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson, you can already be vaccinated without belonging to a priority group.

In rare cases, however, they can have serious side effects and are therefore intended for people over sixty years of age in many countries.

For younger people, prior medical information and an individual risk analysis are required.

The lifting of the prioritization should allow the vaccination campaign to be pushed ahead, Spahn had said.

Deficiency made a fixed order necessary

The official sequence was introduced because of the initially foreseeable lack of vaccine. Declared goal: to quickly protect people at the highest risk of severe and fatal corona courses. In Group 1, people over eighty years of age, people in nursing homes and health workers with a high risk of infection had their turn. This was followed by group 2 with people over seventy years old with diseases such as cancer, kindergarten teachers and primary school teachers. In the meantime, the third and last group is undergoing vaccinations, which, in addition to people over sixty years old, also includes professional groups who cannot work from home - such as saleswomen in supermarkets and bus drivers. There is no group 4 in the vaccination regulation: Then everyone has a turn.

More than seventy percent of people over sixty years of age have been vaccinated at least once, almost 25 percent completely. More than forty million corona vaccine doses have been administered in total. 37 percent of German citizens (30.8 million) are vaccinated at least once - 11.2 percent (9.3 million) are fully vaccinated. The Saarland has the highest quota of at least first vaccinated persons at 41.4 percent. Saxony is behind with 32 percent. More than forty percent should be vaccinated at least once by the end of May. Every seventh person will then have full vaccination protection.

The federal government still does not want to give the all-clear. The daily falling number of new infections and the vaccination campaign that is running with great momentum could make one confident, but not premature, said government spokesman Steffen Seibert. "We have not yet achieved the prerequisites for enjoying a summer that is just as relaxing as last year." The goal must remain to further reduce the number of infections. A year ago, the nationwide seven-day incidence at this time was five, explained Seibert - on Monday, according to the Robert Koch Institute, there were 83.1 new cases reported per 100,000 inhabitants in seven days.