Whether it was politically wise for Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD) to anticipate the Standing Vaccination Commission (STIKO) and challenge their authority once again, or whether it was perhaps even necessary, does not matter to many people.

For everyone who is looking for answers.

Clear answers to the most difficult of all corona questions at the moment: Boost again now?

Or is it better to postpone the fourth dose until autumn, when the Omicron-adapted vaccines will be available?

In any case, there is a lot of confusion about it.

Unnecessarily big.

Joachim Müller-Jung

Editor in the feuilleton, responsible for the "Nature and Science" department.

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The official recommendation of the Vaccination Commission is currently: Everyone over the age of seventy, hospital and nursing staff and people who are generally susceptible, i.e. vulnerable people with corresponding risk factors such as diabetes, autoimmune diseases, cancer patients who are currently being treated and people with a severely weakened immune system, should opt for a fourth dose.

The European health authority ECDC, on the other hand, called on everyone over the age of sixty to get the fourth vaccination a few days ago.

Of course, there are also many countries in Europe that do not make any recommendations at all or, as in Germany, make different assessments.

Lauterbach, for his part, chooses the path of the American government: release the brakes on the expert bureaucracy and push ahead politically.

In his opinion and that of Biden’s Covid task force, everyone else under the age of 60 should also opt for a second booster as soon as possible.

To do this, the Minister of Health is finally risking conflict with the Vaccination Commission, and he has good reasons for doing so.

First, there are the scientific findings.

Every week, almost every day, studies from different countries are made public (here and here and here and here) that show two things: First, the protection against infection built up with vaccinations and infections is disappearing in the omicron wave faster than hoped.

The virus, with its constantly new subvariants, adapts so quickly through mutations and its possibilities for immune escape that most of the vaccinated people have to reckon with infection (again) in the next virus wave.

In most cases, the infection is less of a problem.

The added value of additional vaccine doses

Rather, the concern of the immunologists is, and this is the second important result of the studies, that the protective wall against severe and fatal Covid 19 courses, which has been so excellent up to now, is also becoming brittle more quickly.

In other words: More and more study data, most recently from Sweden, Canada, Israel, Great Britain and the USA, shows that every additional dose of the previous vaccines with an interval of about six months significantly increases the protection against severe and fatal courses - whether over or under the age of sixty .

So far, this can only be proven for the first few months after the second booster, but the qualitative difference is huge.

But why isn't STIKO reacting to the new findings, what makes them hesitate?

As in the case of the unbearable waiting time for vaccinations for children for many parents, the Vaccination Commission, with its unparalleled claim to evidence and safety, is slowing down itself in this situation because it is used to reducing the mass of complex immunity and safety data down to the individual case level to rate.

She is practically paralyzed under the corona avalanche with the evidence that is stored differently but is accumulating at breakneck speed.

The need to react quickly, an old demand of the Corona Expert Council, is not built into the DNA of the Vaccination Commission, as the political implications of their hesitation for the volunteer STIKO experts have generally never been so decisive.

But that's what the current situation has to be about: responsiveness and determination.

Those who are young and healthy can wait.

But among the under-sixties there are millions of citizens for whom the immunological added value of a second booster is more than plausible.

Also because masks and distance rules are no longer observed by a majority.

The inhibition to avoid crowds has fallen.

If you like, vaccination is the last major measure that makes flattening the curves and thus containing the number of Covid-19 and long-Covid victims seem realistic.

But that's exactly why, the willingness to vaccinate, is particularly bad right now.

The vaccination quotas are set in concrete, and the STIKO delays are not helping.

In this respect, Lauterbach's surprising advance seems almost like an attempt at liberation.

However, should he be tempted to use the STIKO attack as a substitute for a really determined, indeed unavoidable, new and broad vaccination campaign in the country, that would be one thing above all: a cheap manoeuvre.