The Corona vaccination campaign has recently lost momentum. Hopes therefore rest on the new vaccine. The head of the crisis team warns against carelessness.
Berlin – The vaccinations against the corona virus with the new vaccine from the US manufacturer Novavax are picking up speed in Germany.
The first federal states began administering the preparation at the weekend. Rhineland-Palatinate and Berlin, among others, want to follow suit on Monday. Other countries will follow in the course of the week.
The federal government hopes that the drug Nuvaxovid will give new impetus to the vaccination campaign in Germany. It was approved as the fifth corona vaccine in the EU – for people aged 18 and over. Two doses are injected about three weeks apart. It’s a protein vaccine, so it’s based on a different technology than the most commonly used mRNA preparations from Pfizer and Moderna, which some people have concerns about.
The head of the federal government’s corona crisis team, Major General Carsten Breuer, told the “Wirtschaftswoche”: “With the Novavax vaccine, we now have another new opportunity to convince those who have previously decided against mRNA vaccines to vaccinate Despite falling incidence numbers, he also warned against recklessness: “We are far from talking about the end of the pandemic.” The omicron wave has apparently been conquered, the first easing is possible, “but we have to remain cautious – and also reckon with it that there may be tightened measures again in the autumn”.
The nationwide seven-day incidence fell again. The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) gave the value of new infections per 100,000 inhabitants per week on Sunday at 1240.3. For comparison: the day before the value was 1253.3. A week ago, the nationwide incidence was 1346.3 (previous month: 1017.4). 107,913 new corona infections were reported to the RKI within one day. Almost 40 countries were removed from the list of corona high-risk areas on Sunday, including EU countries such as Italy, Poland and Belgium. Thousands of people took part in demonstrations nationwide at the weekend against the state corona measures, but in some places fewer participants came than expected.
The first doses of Novavax’s new corona vaccine were administered on Saturday in Hamburg, Schleswig-Holstein and Saarland – sometimes in open vaccination campaigns. The state health ministers had spoken out in favor of initially offering the vaccine primarily to unvaccinated health care workers. In the industry, facility-related vaccination will take effect from March 15th.
Vaccination with Nuvaxovid is also possible in Rhineland-Palatinate, Berlin and Thuringia as well as in a district in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania from Monday. The other federal states want to offer vaccinations with the drug in the course of the week. Delivery to the countries began on Friday. dpa
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