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BERLIN, June 26 (Reuters) - Germany will soon have so many
doses of COVID-19 vaccine on hand that it will be able offer
shots to passers-by in city centres or at places of worship as
it seeks to vaccinate at least 80% of the population, health
officials said on Saturday.
While demand is still outstripping supply in many doctors'
practices, this will switch to a surplus in the next few weeks,
Health Minister Jens Spahn said, adding the country needed to
press on fast with vaccinations to prevent the Delta variant
from taking hold.
The government will deliver 5 million doses to regional
vaccination centres in the first week of July and drugmaker
Moderna Inc will be able to deliver double the doses it
had originally promised Germany, Spahn said in a televised
discussion on the coronavirus.
That will mean the country will shift to campaigning more
actively to encourage those who are hesitant to get a shot,
offering vaccines to passers-by in city centres, or at churches
and mosques.
Spahn said there were already hundreds of thousands of doses
of vaccines produced by AstraZeneca and Johnson &
Johnson that were not immediately being used in doctors
practices. Many Germans favour the vaccine made by Pfizer/
BioNTech.
Germany has now fully vaccinated more than a third of the
total population, while 53% have had a first shot, with 852,814
doses injected on Friday alone, the Robert Koch Institute
(RKI)public health agency reported on Saturday.
RKI head Lothar Wieler said Germany wanted to vaccinate at
least 80% of the population: "We need to reach that figure so we
have basic protection."
Even though infection rates are currently low in Germany,
Spahn said the rapid spread of the Delta variant in Britain and
Israel showed the need for speedy vaccinations.
The RKI declared on Friday that Portugal and Russia will be
added to its list of "virus-variant zones" that already includes
Britain and that triggers restrictions on travel.
The total number of coronavirus cases in Germany increased
by 592 to 3,726,172 on Saturday, while the death toll rose by 68
to 90,746.
(Reporting by Emma Thomasson
Editing by Frances Kerry)
