The first of a total of 50 vaccination centers in the country will open next week to vaccinate people over 80 against Covid-19. Initially, only several thousand seniors will be able to use it each week.
10,334 people in Lower Saxony had agreed their appointments for first and second vaccinations by Friday afternoon, as the Ministry of Social Affairs announced. The authority assumes that all appointments initially available in the vaccination centers will be assigned by the evening. As expected, the appointment hotline and online portal got off to a choppy start on Thursday, with many callers and users not getting through. On the first day, according to the information, 6,000 people were registered on waiting lists for various vaccination centers. How many were added on Friday, the ministry did not announce. No new dates will be offered in the coming days.
All over-80s should be vaccinated from mid-February. NDR.de answers the most important questions about vaccination here. more
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Ministry of Social Affairs is waiting for larger deliveries
The crux of the vaccination campaign is the lack of a vaccine. It is unclear when this will be reliably delivered. On Tuesday, the country expects 58,500 vaccine doses from Biontech / Pfizer. However, these are sometimes used for the ongoing vaccination of home residents, as the deputy head of the Corona crisis team, Claudia Schröder, said on Friday. This will allow around 29,000 people to receive their first and second vaccinations. The manufacturer Moderna is to deliver 8,400 cans for 4,200 people on Sunday. The Ministry of Social Affairs expects the delivery to be delayed. From the second week of February, Biontech will then – as agreed – deliver 63,000 cans a week, official spokesman Oliver Grimm told NDR.de. The country expects the next batch from Moderna from the third week of February. “We don’t know how much is coming,” said Grimm.
Weil relies on vaccination summit with Merkel
Prime Minister Stephan Weil (SPD) supports the plan on Monday in view of the imponderables to continue advising the national vaccination summit with Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU). “We now need binding information about the quantities of vaccinations that will really come in the near future,” said Weil NDR Lower Saxony. A reliable medium-term planning of vaccine deliveries is necessary. “We have to get an even supply, then we can also vaccinate this society,” said Weil, “under the current conditions one has to worry.”
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The SPD politician explains the technical problems and the gradual easing plan for the lockdown. (02/28/2021) 5 min
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Reimann: “Everyone will get an appointment in the next few weeks”
Social and Health Minister Carola Reimann (SPD) meanwhile campaigned in the state parliament on Thursday for understanding for the teething problems. She expects that around 30 of the 50 vaccination centers nationwide will start operating by mid-February. “Everyone will get an appointment in the next few weeks, most just not in the next few days,” said the Social Democrat. At the beginning of next week, the country wants to inform the vaccination centers about the further distribution of the vaccine for the seventh and eighth calendar week, the Ministry of Social Affairs said on Friday. The vaccination centers could then plan appointments and enter them into the booking system.
Criticism of the minister – up to and including calls for resignation
Goslar’s Lord Mayor Oliver Junk (CDU) no longer wants to be satisfied with declarations and promises. The Christian Democrat calls on Prime Minister Weil to “finally draw the personnel consequences for this poor performance in the past pandemic year”. “What has been cobbled together from the Ministry of Social Affairs for a year is enough in other federal states for at least one transfer,” Junk wrote on his website. Criticism of the corona policy and the start of appointments also comes from the Vechta district. The county’s telephones were overloaded after the lines specified by the country collapsed. The vaccination doses would also be distributed according to opaque criteria, said Vechtas District Administrator Herbert Winkel.
Doctors from Vechta write a letter to the ministry
The head of the rescue service in Vechta, Oliver Peters, as well as the heads of several hospitals were annoyed that their employees had not yet been vaccinated despite the increased risk. The country urgently needs to draw up comprehensible guidelines on how the vaccination doses are distributed fairly. The chief physicians of the Marienhospital in Vechta wrote a corresponding letter to the Ministry of Social Affairs. That reports the “Oldenburgische Volkszeitung”. Covid-19 patients have been treated in the hospital for a year, most of them come from neighboring counties.
In total, around 176,000 corona vaccinations have been administered in Lower Saxony so far, including almost 33,000 second vaccinations.
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