Potentially huge Covid-19 vaccination boost in April dismissed by German health minister as unrealistic

The German health minister has confirmed that there will be a boost in Covid-19 vaccination in April but admitted the increase won’t be as considerable as people might be hoping for.

Speaking on Wednesday to ZDF television, Health Minister Jens Spahn warned that vaccinating as many as 20 million people in one month, roughly a quarter of the population, is not realistic. He is facing criticism from doctors who want to see the country inoculated faster. 

Spahn said the vaccines will be administered faster in April “but the vaccination numbers will not immediately grow to 20 million a month or to 10 million a week,” he stated, adding that “in April, there will be significantly more vaccinations, but not on that scale.”

The comments come amid increasing pressure to inoculate faster with the head of the KBV (the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians), which represents 165,000 doctors and psychotherapists, claiming surgeries could administer about five million vaccinations a week. “Just let us vaccinate, make the vaccine available to us through pharmacies and don’t kill us with bureaucracy,” said KBV boss, Andreas Gassen. 

To date, only 6.4 percent of the country’s population of 83 million have received at least their first Covid-19 dose, considerably below other developed nations outside of the EU.

The country is also experiencing an uptick in infection rates and the increasing prevalence of the more contagious British variant of Covid-19. On Monday, a number of regions were allowed to reopen parts of the economy. In North Rhine-Westphalia, zoos, museums and castles reopened with limited admissions despite high Covid levels. 

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