GERMAN U-TURN
Berlin FINALLY admits it can be used for all ages – less than a week after Merkel fuelled public fears
GERMANY’S health minister made an embarrassing climbdown yesterday and admitted that his country will copy Britain’s vaccination strategy.
Jens Spahn said the Oxford/ AstraZeneca vaccine works ‘very well’ in the over-65s, reversing Berlin’s earlier stance.
Many Germans have refused the vaccine because of unfounded fears over its effectiveness and even its safety. Hundreds of thousands of doses are still to be used.
Only five days ago Chancellor Angela Merkel said she would not have the UK jab because ‘I am 66 years old and I do not belong to the recommended group’.
However, Mr Spahn said he expects German regulators – who had ignored a decision by their EU counterparts to issue new advice on the jab – to recommend it for all ages within the coming days.
And, he added, Berlin will be likely to space out first and second doses over 12 weeks, just as Britain has done.
‘If we could vaccinate the over65-year- olds with AstraZeneca, that would really speed things up and protect the most vulnerable more quickly,’ Mr Spahn told ARD television. ‘We have good data from England and Scotland that show us it makes sense to further space out the recommended interval between doses.’
He said the interval between Pfizer-BioNTech jabs should be from four weeks to six weeks and for AstraZeneca, from nine weeks to 12 weeks. ‘Then we can do more first vaccinations,’ he added. ‘That’s the exciting thing about AstraZeneca – it’s effectiveness is also higher. It protects better.’
His proposal represents a U-turn for Berlin, which had claimed the University of Oxford- developed vaccine could only be used for 18 to 64-year olds. German ‘government sources’ briefed financial newspaper Handelsblatt in January that the jab had only 8 per cent efficacy in the over-65s, claims denied by the company and contrary to the findings of the UK regulator.
Mrs Merkel is under rising pressure to set out plans to restore normality after four months of lockdown but daily cases are creeping up again and as of Tuesday, only 6.6million Germans had had either a first or second jab, compared to 21.3million Britons.
One German academic blamed his country’s bureaucracy for the delays. Hans- Martin von Gaudecker, a professor of economics at the University of Bonn, said: ‘What normally makes German bureaucracy stolid and reliable becomes an obstacle in a crisis and costs lives.’
Germany’s change of heart came as Belgium also changed its advice, lifting restrictions on its use for
‘Disgraceful farce’
the over-55s. ‘ The AstraZeneca vaccine can be used in people over 18 years of age without limitation,’ Belgian health authorities said, more than two months after Britain reached the same conclusion.
France scrapped its own age restrictions for 65 to 74-year-olds late on Monday. President Emmanuel Macron had initially claimed it was ‘quasi-ineffective’ in protecting pensioners.
The admission by Germany comes as a major poll showed the European public blame Brussels for the botched rollout.
A survey by Kekst CNC said 51 per cent of voters in Germany believe the EU has handled the scheme badly. ‘In Germany more people now disapprove of the EU than approve of its pandemic response for the first time,’ the pollsters said. The poll showed 77 per cent of UK respondents approved of the vaccination scheme led by Downing Street. Just 23 per cent of Germans, 19 per cent of Swedes and 18 per cent of French citizens said the same about their own national rollouts. Swedish MEP Charlie Weimers said: ‘The EU’s shambolic handling of the vaccine scheme could end up being the best recruitment sergeant for euro- scepticism in Europe. It’s breathtaking that noone has offered their resignation over this disgraceful farce.’ One of the few EU success stories is Denmark which is expected to vaccinate all adults by July – far ahead of the EU goal of 70 per cent by September. Unlike Germany every member of its 6million population has digital health records linked to a single ID number, making it easy for the authorities to trace them.