Scholz tells Germans to get used to coronavirus vaccines in long term

Germans must be prepared for coronavirus vaccinations in the long term, Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Thursday following discussions with regional leaders.

"We will probably have to vaccinate for longer," the Social Democrat said in Berlin on his first full day in office after taking over from Angela Merkel.

For this reason, the vaccination infrastructure currently being set up for Germany's booster campaign should not be scaled down again so quickly, he said.

Scholz was referring to local vaccination centres, mobile vaccination teams and vaccinations in pharmacies.

"Maybe it's just the case now that we have to adjust to having a jab every now and then to make sure we're well enough protected," he added.

The new health minister in Scholz's centre-left coalition, which also includes the Greens and the pro-business Free Democrats, has vowed to take an inventory of the nation's vaccine stocks.

"We have the basis for 30 million vaccinations by the end of the year," Karl Lauterbach told Der Spiegel news magazine.

"We are now first doing an inventory with all the specialist departments on Friday to see how many of these 30 million can really be used."

Shortly before becoming chancellor, Scholz called for 30 million vaccinations to be given by Christmas, and the authorities pledged that everyone who wanted a first, second or booster shot by the end of the year should be able to get one.

Lauterbach also said he is seeking to assess which bilateral contracts may be possible in terms of procuring further Covid-19 vaccines.

It emerged on Wednesday that the German government has obtained a further 3 million Pfizer/BioNTech shots that other EU states do not need, in order to make progress on the vaccination campaign.

The additional jabs are to be made available to the states for vaccination centres this week and early next week, according to a report by Lauterbach's predecessor.

The German vaccination authority on Thursday provisionally cleared coronavirus vaccination for all children aged from 5 to 11, recommending it for those with existing conditions or in contact with high-risk patients.

The Stiko vaccination committee said it did not yet have sufficient data to issue a blanket recommendation for all children in that age group.

However, healthy children aged 5 to 11 can be vaccinated on a voluntary basis and following consultation with a doctor, under the committee's advice.

Earlier Thursday, the official disease control body, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), reported a gradual, continuing decline in Germany's coronavirus infection rate.

The RKI put the seven-day incidence rate at 422.3 per 100,000 of the population on Thursday morning, down from 427 on Wednesday and 439.2 a week ago. It remains considerably higher than the 213.7 recorded a month ago.

However, the seven-day hospitalization rate rose to 5.79 per 100,000 on Wednesday, up from 5.45 on Tuesday.

Around 1.1 million vaccinations against the virus were administered in the country on Wednesday, with 992,000 being booster shots going to people who were already vaccinated.

A total of 16.6 million people have now received boosters, equivalent to some 20 per cent of the population.

The percentage of the total population that has been fully vaccinated crept up to 69.3 per cent, while 72.3 per cent have received their first shot. Of the 1.1 million shots given on Wednesday, just 80,500 went to people being vaccinated for the first time.

Resistance to vaccination is particularly strong in the eastern state of Saxony, where 58.7 per cent of the population has fully been vaccinated.