Germany is scrambling to buy up millions of coronavirus vaccine doses, and get jabs in arms, to prepare itself for a new wave driven by the Omicron variant of COVID-19, which is already causing infection rates in other European countries to explode. 

Germany orders 92 million extra COVID vaccine doses

Shortly after sounding the alarm over low vaccine stockpiles for the first quarter of 2022, new Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach and new Finance Minister Christian Lindner announced on Wednesday that Germany would spend an extra 2,2 billion euros to secure 92 million doses of coronavirus vaccines, to arm itself and the healthcare system against the rapidly-spreading Omicron variant. 

The government will purchase 80 million doses of the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine through EU procurement programmes, and a further 12 million doses on the open market. “We need more vaccines quickly for speedy booster shots and possible Omicron vaccinations,” Lauterbach said.

In a sign of the renewed impetus given to the vaccination campaign by the new variant, Germany hit a new record for daily vaccinations on Wednesday, with 1,496 million doses administered in the space of 24 hours. According to data from the Robert Koch Institute, 1,3 million booster vaccines and 97.400 primary vaccinations were administered. Over 70 percent of the population have now had at least two jabs, and 27,6 percent have had a booster. 

Omicron tightens its grip on Europe

Countries across Europe are betting on booster vaccinations to help them tackle the spread of Omicron. In the UK, where cases of the variant are roughly doubling every two to three days, ministers have accelerated the campaign to try to get a third dose to as many people as possible by the end of the year.

Cases are still relatively low in Germany, but they are on the increase, and given the current rate of infection in countries like the UK and Denmark, experts say they expect the variant to become dominant by mid-January. They are therefore calling for urgent contingency plans from policymakers on how to deal with the variant. 

Experts such as the virologist Sandra Ciesek and the pandemic modeller Dirk Brockmann have warned against setting too much store by the suggestion that Omicron causes less severe courses of the disease. They argue that data from South Africa cannot necessarily be transferred to other countries such as Germany - where the average age is much higher, and the previous infection rate much lower. 

Experts have also warned against relying solely on boosters to combat Omicron. Since modelling shows that the variant is likely to develop similarly in Germany as it did in Denmark and the UK, they suggest that further action - perhaps even including a lockdown - is needed.