The German Health Secretary, Jens Spahn, has announced the need to speed up the country’s vaccination drive to mitigate the spread of the Delta variant around Europe.

Vaccines, vaccines and more vaccines

Germany’s Federal Health Minister, Jens Spahn, said on Saturday that the country needed to speed up its vaccination drive in order to try and curb the spread of the coronavirus Delta variant. This should not be a problem though, as, according to health officials, Germany is soon expected to have enough vaccinations to give them out to pedestrians in German cities.

Spahn revealed that the Federal Government expects to deliver five million doses of the coronavirus vaccine to centres across the country in the first week of July. “By the end of July, every adult in Germany who wants to be vaccinated will also be able to receive the first vaccination. If deliveries continue like this, perhaps even a little earlier,” Spahn said.

Vaccine deliveries in Germany

Over the next week, five million doses of the vaccine are expected to be delivered by AstraZeneca, and a further one million doses will be provided by Johnson & Johnson. These will be shared across the vaccination centres, as well as being delivered to doctors and hospitals.

The health minister also said Moderna was expected to deliver double its expected supply, with the vaccine producer reportedly aiming to provide 5,32 million doses in July, 10,28 in August, and a further 14,5 million doses in September.

Germany overtakes Britain in vaccine drive

Jens Spahn called the vaccine the “most powerful tool” against the coronavirus in Germany. The health minister also tweeted out on Saturday that Germany had overtaken Britain in the number of people who had been vaccinated. According to Spahn, 53,3 percent of Germans have received one dose of the vaccine, while 34,8 percent have been fully vaccinated.

The president of the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), Lothar Wieler, has called for the vaccination drive to speed up in Germany. When asked how many people need to be vaccinated, Weiler responded: “We are talking about more than 80 percent of the people living in our country.” He added that “we need to reach this figure so we have basic protection.”

Spahn also used Britain to illustrate the need to ramp up the country’s vaccination drive, as the outbreak of the Delta variant has drastically worsened the infection situation there, as well as in Israel. A single dose of the vaccine only offers minimal protection against this new variant, so authorities in Germany are looking to shorten the time between doses.