World champion exporter, logistics specialist, country of organization – Germany has a great reputation when it comes to efficiency. Many people seem particularly upset about the recent obstacles in carrying out the fight against the pandemic of the century.
Vaccinations against coronavirus proceeded at a very slow pace: Only 2.7% of Germans were fully vaccinated and only 5.7% received their first dose, according to the German Federal Ministry of Health’s vaccination panel (March 4, 2021). This places Germany in 33rd place on the American news agency Bloomberg’s Vaccination Tracker, far behind other industrialized countries such as the United Kingdom (31.4%) or the USA (16.3%). Accusations of missing doses of vaccines being wasted in Germany are all the more scathing when voiced by people like Christian Lindner, leader of the business-friendly Free Democratic Party (FDP).
“While #Biden has promised to offer vaccinations to every adult in the US by the end of May, vaccines are being discarded or laid here in Germany … This vaccination disaster cannot continue. We need a trifecta of vaccination, testing and opening, ‘Lindner wrote on Twitter.
But is the accusation true? The German Federal Ministry of Health does not collect data on discarded vaccine doses and suggests that we direct inquiries to state ministers of health. Germany’s leading authority on disease control and prevention, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), also does not collect such data. That is why DW in all 16 states reached the ministries responsible for such matters – where we received different answers:
Baden-Württemberg
“We have no numbers,” said a spokesman for the Ministry of Welfare and Integration in Baden-Württemberg in response to DW’s query. The detection of given doses is not collected systematically, the ministry said. If it does, we are rarely told. The motto at state vaccination centers is: “Waste no vaccine, and if doses remain, you should be pragmatically focused on vaccinating priority groups.”
Bavaria
Bavaria gave us concrete numbers on the discarded vaccines: 0.2% of all doses of vaccines in the state had to be discarded. In absolute numbers, that means 3,021 of 1,608,150 doses administered (March 1, 2021), according to a spokesman for the Bavarian Ministry of Health and Care. The number also contains 1,000 doses that had to be destroyed due to interruptions in the so-called transport and storage cold. “Further grounds for disposal include broken vials or those containing too little vaccine to make up a dose, as well as those containing solid particulate contaminants, or if errors have been made in administering the dose.” Prepared doses can also be quickly diverted to vaccinate other individuals, according to the priority rankings, so that they cannot be discarded.
Berlin
A spokesman for the Berlin Senate Administration for Health has confirmed that five doses of vaccine have been thrown away in the capital so far, as reported by the daily. Tagesspiegel. This was apparently necessary because the vaccine had been sitting in the syringe for too long, making it unusable. “If there are still a few doses left in Berlin, it will be given to people who work in the vaccination centers,” the authorities said.
Police and emergency services personnel were vaccinated when doses remained
Brandenburg
Brandenburg administered every dose he prepared. A spokesman for the Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians of Brandenburg, which is responsible for administering the vaccine across the state, says the fast-scheduled delivery of very specific amounts of vaccine and the flexible distribution of extra doses to other priority people is a must. doses are discarded. “This ensures that no dose is wasted,” reads a statement.
Bremen
“At no stage have unused vaccine doses been thrown away in Bremen,” a city-state spokesman said. Individual vaccination appointments allow authorities to know exactly how much vaccine they need on a given day. Problems with canceled or missed appointments were few. According to the spokesperson, remaining doses are given to emergency service workers.
Hamburg
“No unused vaccine doses have been thrown away so far,” said a spokesman for the City of Hamburg’s Ministry of Social Affairs. There was, however, one exception in which a few doses had to be destroyed ‘because the temperature was not maintained due to a technical defect in a cold room system.’ The spokesman says the vaccination centers in Hamburg prepare as many doses as they need. If canceled appointments to doses remain, they are given to emergency services workers “who are on the same priority level and close.”
Scarce resource: Remaining vaccines should be given to the next in line to avoid wastage
Hesse
Our outreach to Hesse’s home affairs ministry remained unanswered. But a spokesman for the largest city, Frankfurt, said “vaccines were never thrown”. Mobile vaccination stations also did not waste the vaccine as they planned carefully, the spokesman said. In some isolated cases, damaged doses of BioNTech / Pfizer have been returned and replaced.
Mecklenburg-West Pomerania
According to data from the Ministry of Economy, Labor and Health in Mecklenburg-West Pomerania, very few remaining doses were given according to the priority level to the following, as well as medical staff. Mecklenburg-West Pomerania does not hold records. at discarded doses.
Lower Saxony
A spokesman for the Ministry of Social Affairs, Health and Equal Opportunities in Lower Saxony said that ‘not a single discount can be given’ that some individual doses of vaccine have been discarded, but that the remaining doses are generally immediately given to those with a similar dose is given. priority rankings. Vaccination centers in Lower Saxony should not prepare more vaccination doses than they can administer throughout the day. The ministry did not provide any concrete information on discarded doses.
North Rhine-Westphalia
North Rhine-Westphalia’s Ministry of Labor, Health and Social Affairs also does not have statistics on discarded vaccines. Remaining vaccines are administered to those with the highest priority. If this can not be done, the local coordinators of the vaccination center must decide who should be vaccinated so that no doses need to be discarded.
Rhineland-Palatinate
As in Bavaria, Rhineland-Palatinate has carefully documented all discarded vaccine doses. According to a spokesperson for the Ministry of Social Affairs, Labor, Health and Demography, if 305,500 doses had to be administered, 0.3% had to be discarded. “To our knowledge, there were very few cases of doses not being used, only if they were damaged during transport,” the ministry said.
Saarland
The neighboring Saarland, on the other hand, says: “so far not a single dose of vaccine has had to be discarded.” The state’s Ministry of Welfare says that so far remaining doses have been given to emergency services personnel. People over 70, those working in testing centers, health care administration employees, police and teachers also left doses to ensure no one was left unused.
Saxony
Saxony also uses a varied process that effectively ensures that vaccine doses do not have to be discarded, according to the Ministry of Social Affairs. If doses remain, those working at nursing homes, doctors’ offices and hospitals or as outpatient care providers are invited to receive a sting. In addition, emergency workers or other patients may be vaccinated with priority. This is especially true when it comes to the BioNTech / Pfizer vaccine, which must be used when prepared, as it cannot be put back in a cooler and can be used later, as the AstraZeneca and Moderna vaccines can do.
Saxony-Anhalt
The Ministry of Labor, Social Affairs and Integration in Saxony-Anhalt, “has no data on unused / discarded vaccine doses.” Some doses may be discarded due to inferior quality, but there is no general database of cases. Remaining doses are usually given to people according to priority status, a ministry spokesman said.
Schleswig-Holstein
“There are no known cases of vaccine disposal,” said a spokesman for the Ministry of Social Affairs in Schleswig-Holstein. The ministry added that since the exact number of doses needed can be quickly calculated at vaccination centers and stocks can be continuously adjusted, there are few doses left, and the doses can be given according to the priority group. Currently, such remaining doses are actively offered to emergency service workers, nurses and employees of the vaccination center.
Thuringia
“No vaccines are stored or thrown away in Thuringia, there are no remaining doses,” said Thuringia’s Ministry of Labor, Social Welfare and Health. The ministry says this was made possible by a short-term allocation system. The state used its entire stock of Moderna vaccine. BioNTech / Pfizer is currently holding off a portion of its second doses. Following a substantial delivery of AstraZeneca, the state plans to expand the use of the vaccine.
Summary
DW Fact check statement: misleading.
Christian Lindner claims that vaccine doses are just unused and are being thrown away all over Germany.
The statement is not entirely untrue, as our research has found that this has happened in a very small number of cases. Nevertheless, things are not as Lindner wants them to be. Many states say they have not wasted a single dose of vaccine yet, others say they had to throw some away, and still others said they had no information on this. When vaccines had to be destroyed, it was mainly due to interruptions in the refrigerator and transport cabinet, as well as quality problems.
As there are no independent sources on the use of vaccines at vaccination centers across the country, our research is mainly based on data provided by the government ministries responsible for its collection. Yet local voices in different municipalities have painted a similar picture. Our research could not confirm Lindner’s claim that large quantities of unused coronavirus vaccines are lying at German vaccination centers and are even being discarded.
This article was translated from German by Jon Shelton