The vaccine is available, but more and more people miss their appointments – sometimes without canceling them. Politicians bring up fines for the vaccination deadline in the discussion.
The progress of the vaccination campaign in Germany cannot be overlooked: According to the Federal Ministry of Health, 75.8 million vaccine doses against Covid-19 have been administered so far, more than half of the citizens have received at least one dose, a good 38 percent are already fully vaccinated. And yet it doesn’t go fast enough. Especially in view of the spreading delta variant, researchers are pushing for an even faster pace in order to prevent infections and serious illnesses.
But time and again valuable time is lost – for example because people do not show up for their agreed vaccination appointments and thus delay the whole process. Vaccination centers across the country say that appointments are not kept, be it because of the good weather, a game of the German national soccer team or out of sheer forgetfulness. In the worst case, the vaccination doses expire without prior cancellation – and other people who have not yet received a vaccination have to wait even longer. That is why politicians are now discussing possible sanctions for truant vaccinations.
Berlin DRK boss calls for a fine of 25 to 30 euros
SPD politician Karl Lauterbach speaks out in favor. “People who let their vaccination appointments lapse without having to unsubscribe beforehand, do something that damages the vaccination campaign and sometimes leads to us having to throw away the vaccine,” the health expert told the WDR. In such cases “a penalty should be customary”. Thorsten Frei, vice-parliamentary group of the Union in the Bundestag, also demands: “Anyone who is too comfortable to pick up the phone or cancel an appointment with just a few clicks should have to pay for the costs incurred.”
The President of the Berlin Red Cross, Mario Czaja, has already made a specific proposal: The former Berlin Health Senator is demanding a “vaccination tax” of 25 to 30 euros. Failure to keep an appointment without cancellation causes unnecessary costs because staff and vaccines are kept unnecessarily, Czaja told the RBB.
Others oppose fines and fear that they will scare off those willing to vaccinate. Rather, they want to make the conditions for a vaccination more comfortable. The Berlin Greens parliamentary group leader Silke Gebel suggested in the RBB to allow parents to bring their children to the vaccination appointment: “I believe that we can make a lot of relief so that people who want to be vaccinated can also get vaccinated. ”
Up to 40 percent of vaccination appointments are canceled
The vaccine is now available in sufficient quantities, but now vaccination threatens to stall due to the lack of discipline on the part of some people. Many people skip their second vaccination appointment after the first dose – full protection against Covid-19 only starts after two vaccinations. According to “Tagesspiegel”, 15 to 40 percent of the appointments in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania are missed, in Hesse the “no-show rate” is 20 percent, in Berlin one in ten does not come.
There is not always malice behind it. When trying to get a vaccination, many people drive on several tracks – and then don’t tell the vaccination center, for example, if they have already received a vaccination from their family doctor. A vaccination center in Saxony, however, phoned some truants afterwards, after which the employees were surprised by the reactions. “The answers we heard there were actually astonishing, make us very thoughtful – there were answers like: ‘I was in the garden that day, it was so nice and sunny'”, said DRK spokesman Kai Kranich MDR.
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