Germany’s vaccine debacle goes from bad to worse

Germany’s decision to stop using the AstraZeneca Covid vaccine has been condemned internationally. It has also gone down badly with Germans. Once again, the country’s health minister Jens Spahn is under fire. 

A year into the pandemic, Germans are fed up with what they see as a government which is too cautious to use its only weapon out of this crisis. Even before the suspension of the vaccine this week, the rollout was painfully slow. While Britain has issued 22million doses, Germany is lagging way behind: only 9.3million of its people have received their vaccinations. This latest hold-up will only further slow down the vaccine programme. And Germans fear that this means the anticipated end of most corona-related restrictions by summer is now more and more unlikely.

Spahn did himself few favours when he underlined how there had been only seven cases of cerebral venous sinus thrombosis (out of nearly two million people) possibly linked to the jab. This