Photographer: Fabrizio Bensch / AFP / Getty Images
Photographer: Fabrizio Bensch / AFP / Getty Images
Chancellor Angela Merkel said Germany would speed up its Covid-19 vaccination process and try to recover from the temporary cessation of AstraZeneca Plc’s shot over blood clot concerns.
While Europe is facing a virus outbreak from France to the Czech Republic, Merkel has taken a look at the grip of the crisis, while Germany’s signal may need to work back part of its earlier easing of the closure. Three available vaccines and the expected arrival of a Johnson & Johnson shot will help, she said.
“From April, we want to become faster and more flexible, and we will be able to do that,” Merkel told reporters in Berlin on Friday after talks with German leaders. “We want to complement proverbial German thoroughness with greater flexibility.”
Like many of her European counterparts, Merkel is facing several pitches. For now, she is caught between the European Union’s problems with vaccination, public dissatisfaction with her pandemic response and a surge in cases after Germany eased restrictions on closure. Support for her ruling party’s bloc dropped to a one-year low in a poll this week.
On Monday, Merkel and state leaders will discuss whether restrictions in Europe’s largest economy should be extended or even tightened by April, rather than easing them as the government proposed earlier this month. German Covid-19 cases rose the most in two months on Thursday.
“We are seeing exponential growth” in cases, Merkel said on Friday. “Unfortunately we will have to use the emergency brake.”
There and back
Countries across Europe have suspended and reintroduced the use of the Astra vaccine shot
Source: Bloomberg
Europe’s effort to accelerate its vaccination campaign for Covid-19 faces the challenge of restoring public confidence after a chaotic week of vaccination suspension, health concerns and threats to the export ban.
EU officials are trying to look ahead to the second quarter, when vaccine delivery is expected to increase rapidly. The EU drug regulator on Thursday gave its all for the AstraZeneca shot after reports linked it to blood clots in a small number of patients.
“Every time you roll out a vaccine like this to millions and millions of people, it happens by accident and other events occur simultaneously during deployment,” Bruce Aylward, senior adviser to the World Health Organization, told reporters on Friday.
“What the population is usually looking for is that it be properly assessed so that their trust can be ensured,” he said.
Merkel on Friday addressed the question of public confidence in vaccines, saying she was ready to take the AstraZeneca shot.
Sputnik option
The Russian Sputnik vaccine is also an option if approved by the European Medicines Agency, Merkel said. Although a joint European order from Russia would be preferable, we would have to follow a German direction if necessary, ‘she said.
While a decline in German infection rates reversed in March, the country still has fewer cases per capita than countries such as Italy and France, where a renewed four-week exclusion began in Paris and other regions on Friday.
Health Minister Jens Spahn, who is facing action by the opposition, said earlier Friday that Germany is in a “third wave” of Covid-19 with a large number of cases of variant viruses.
“There are some pretty challenging weeks ahead of us,” he said.
Measures to boost Germany’s immunization action include German doctors’ offices starting AstraZeneca vaccines on April 6, Merkel said. In general, the plan calls for vaccination options to gradually expand to physicians as well as existing vaccination centers.
“The slogan is: vaccine, vaccine, vaccine,” Merkel said.
– With help by Corinne Gretler
(Updates with Merkel comment on growth in Covid cases in sixth paragraph.)