Baden-Württemberg has caught up with vaccination.

69.3 percent of citizens are now vaccinated twice against the corona virus.

However, the state still does not come close to the city-state of Bremen with 82.7 percent, which is a major annoyance, especially for Uwe Lahl, the Bremen-based head of the Baden-Württemberg Ministry of Health.

Rudiger Soldt

Political correspondent in Baden-Württemberg.

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The federal state in the southwest still has the lowest vaccination rate of all western German federal states, even if the gap to other countries has decreased significantly.

The green-black state government therefore wants to accelerate the vaccination once again, especially in immigrant milieus and among asylum seekers and refugees.

That is why the approximately 1200 integration managers in the country are now to be deployed as “vaccination ambassadors”.

After the refugee crisis in 2015, the Green Minister of Social Affairs and Health Manfred Lucha launched an “integration pact” and, since 2018, has created temporary positions for integration managers in the districts and municipalities.

The annual costs for this were around 60 million euros.

It is normally the task of these specialized social workers to make “integration target agreements” with refugees in the communal follow-up accommodation about attending language courses or acquiring additional professional qualifications.

The tasks of these social workers also include support in dealing with authorities for the recognition of foreign school, professional and university degrees.

41 percent of those who were not vaccinated were severely refused vaccinations

Now they should educate immigrants about the chances and risks of corona vaccinations; In January, the integration managers are to be trained for their additional tasks, then advice on vaccination is to be included in “social and procedural advice” and in refugee social work. In addition, the integration managers are to cooperate intensively with the resident doctors and the mobile vaccination teams in the future. "The integration managers are important actors who can help us to reach people who previously thought they had no access to the vaccination or needed further information," the ministry said on request.

The Ministry of Health wants to ensure in the next few weeks that the integration managers are informed about all "arguments and processes" relating to vaccination.

The training of integration managers is an "additional attempt" to improve the vaccination rate in certain population groups.

The project has one disadvantage, however: the integration managers can only advise asylum seekers or refugees who live in a communal facility for follow-up accommodation in their offices;

This task must continue to be performed by the mobile vaccination teams and the social workers in the respective municipality.