Scarce doses and empty vaccination centres: Germany’

BERLIN: (HRNW) Proud of their national reputation for efficiency, Germans are growing increasingly frustrated by the slow rollout of a COVID-19 vaccine its scientists helped develop.

Scarce vaccine supply, cumbersome paperwork, a lack of healthcare staff and an aged and immobile population are hampering efforts to get early doses of a vaccine made by U.S.-based Pfizer and German partner BioNTech into the arms of the people.

Germany has set up hundreds of vaccination centres in sports halls and concert arenas and has the infrastructure to administer up to 300,000 shots a day, Health Minister Jens Spahn said.

But the majority are standing empty, with most states not planning to open centres until mid-January as they prioritise sending mobile teams into care homes.

A day spent with a vaccination team in the small town of Dillenburg, 100 km (60 miles) to the north of Germany’s financial capital Frankfurt, shows just how painstaking the task is.