Berlin: More than half of the German population is now fully vaccinated, Health Minister Jens Spahn said on Wednesday, but the worries grew about the slowdown.
“41.8 million Germany now has full protection, while 61.1 percent has received at least one shot.
More and more people will be vaccinated, safer we will be in autumn and winter,” Spahn wrote on Twitter.
The German vaccination campaign was accelerated in the spring after the first few months of slow, but the country remained far from 80 percent targeted for herd immunity.
Inoculation drives have slowed to the pace of the snail in the past few weeks, hone fears of the wave of the fourth infection driven by a more contagious Delta variant.
With the case number also increases, the debate about how to convince more people to take vaccines will be the main problem in the national election scheduled for September 26.
Unlike other European countries such as France and Greece, Germany has so far ruled out introducing mandatory JAB for certain population parts.
Last week, Chancellor Angela Merkel urged residents to vaccinate to curb what he called “clear and worried dynamic” at the level of infection.
“Every vaccination is a small step towards the return to normality,” he said.
Merkel Helge Braun’s Chief of staff also pold up further restrictions on public life for those who are not vaccinated, even if they can show a recent negative test.
“People who are vaccinated will definitely have more freedom than people who are not vaccinated” if the case number rises again in the fall, Braun said.
Germany has seen low infection numbers during the summer compared to many European neighbors, but cases have crawled over the past few weeks.
On Wednesday, official figures showed 2768 new Coronavirus cases for the past 24 hours, while events have increased again to reach 15 cases per 100,000 over a seven-day period.
According to the Public Health Agent Robert Koch Institute, the Delta variant now accounts for more than 80 percent of all new infections in Germany.