Up to 417,000 people in Germany havereceived COVID-19 jabs since the vaccination program began on Dec. 27, theRobert Koch Institute (RKI) announced on Thursday, reports Xinhua.
More than 201,000 health care workers, 168,000 residents of nursing homeshave got vaccinated, according to the RKI data.
Due to the initial shortage of doses, people over 80 as well as residentsand staff of nursing and old people’s homes will remain priority groups to beinoculated, according to the German government.
“We want to protect those first who are most vulnerable. Once those in needof care and the elderly are vaccinated, the pandemic loses much of itshorror,” Minister of Health Jens Spahn told a press conference on Wednesday.
On Wednesday, the European Commission approved a second COVID-19 vaccine,developed by US companyModerna, following a positive recommendation from the European Medicines Agency.
With the already approved Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, Germany is expecting atotal of around 130 million vaccine doses this year, according to Spahn.
According to the latest daily situation report by the RKI, “vaccination isbeing carried out at different rates and with different focuses in thefederal states.”
In ten federal states, vaccinations for priority occupations were in thefocus, while the majority of jabs were given to people aged 80 and above intwo other federal states.
