The demand for booster vaccinations has been great since Health Minister Spahn promised everyone a so-called booster that was immunized six months ago.

Numerous districts and cities have already reacted, including the city of Offenbach.

There you will also vaccinate up to two weeks earlier, says Mayor Sabine Groß (Die Grünen).

With the exception of general practitioners and specialists, anyone who wants can can also be boosted in the vaccination station in the Bernardbau.

According to Groß, older people, those with previous illnesses or an immune system that has been weakened for other reasons, as well as staff from care facilities, have priority over other people who want to be vaccinated.

It will be immunized according to the recommendations of the Standing Vaccination Commission (STIKO).

Jochen Remmert

Airport editor and correspondent Rhein-Main-Süd.

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Most recently, the city of Offenbach reported a rapidly and sharply increasing incidence, especially among children aged between five and 14. Therefore, the city is adapting its corona rules in schools together with the districts and cities along the Main-Schiene. From Thursday onwards, students will have to wear masks at their seats again until further notice. In Frankfurt, the rule should apply from Friday, since the regulation is issued by general decree.

Many Hessian doctors are currently not up to the onslaught of their patients who want to be vaccinated and can hardly keep up with the booster vaccinations.

In the next week, however, there will be up to 150,000 vaccinations in the practices, announced the chairman of the board of directors of the Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians in Hessen (KVH), Frank Dastych.

He knew of numerous doctors who would have ordered significantly more vaccine.

In addition to excessive bureaucracy and inflexible vaccine logistics, he also made the federal government responsible for the vaccination shortage among resident physicians, which operates “popular happiness with boosters for everyone”.

Almost 100,000 vaccinations a week

In the summer, the KVH had also spoken out in favor of closing the vaccination centers. Now more and more voices, also from doctors, are loud, calling this a mistake (FAZ from Monday). “When we started talking about boosting, we were looking at people over the age of 80. You don't need vaccination centers for that, ”said Dastych. However, if more people are to be re-vaccinated, he believes that it would not be wrong to create additional capacities. The chairman also assumes that these capacities are partly already available due to numerous municipal offers. “They would be sufficient if we followed the STIKO recommendation,” he said with conviction.

Dastych is optimistic that Hesse's doctors will soon be vaccinating more. "We can significantly increase the vaccination capacities in the practices, whereby we are now at almost 100,000 vaccinations a week," he said. If the booster vaccinations were only carried out according to the STIKO recommendation, Hesse's doctors would have to give 200,000 vaccinations every week. “The target must be 250,000 vaccinations per week in December, but no later than January, then we have a realistic chance of being able to carry out the booster vaccinations promptly,” he said of the situation. Almost 4,000 doctors are currently vaccinating their patients in Hessen. According to Dastych, that is 70 to 75 percent of all resident doctors.

So that more and faster vaccinations can be vaccinated, the chairman demands that sufficient vaccine be stored in pharmacies and that it no longer has to be laboriously ordered in advance. The problem: If the vaccine is currently running out, the doctors have to stop the vaccination until the next delivery, even though they have time and patients willing to vaccinate at the door. Another point of criticism is the bureaucracy. According to Dastych, every vaccination has to be documented five times: "In other countries, vaccination works like pretzel baking, they do it too, and they do it faster."

He also calls for mandatory vaccination for health professionals: “We cannot accept that unvaccinated people work in nursing and doctors' practices when we know at the same time that the people who are supposed to look after them are the ones who will get vaccinations the quickest subsides. "