With the number of daily vaccinations falling just as the seven-day incidence rate begins to rise, figures in Germany are calling on the country to “get creative” to boost vaccine uptake. 

Politicians call for Germany to get creative on vaccines

The vaccination rate in Germany is declining. But with just 40,8 percent of the population fully inoculated against COVID-19, the federal republic is in a race against time to stop the highly-contagious Delta variant from pushing up case numbers. A debate has therefore been sparked as to how to reach people who have not yet taken up the offer of a jab. 

The health policy spokesperson for the SPD, Sabine Dittmar, told Welt that “more creative vaccination offers” were needed, for instance enabling people to get vaccinated in shopping streets, housing estates, and at events. 

Similar calls came from Germany’s union of doctors, the Marburger Bund. “The local authorities need a little bit more creativity,” said chairperson Susanne Johna to the Rheinische Post. “We also have to speak to people directly and not wait for them to come to the vaccination centre or family doctor. The lower the threshold, the better.” 

Should raffles or prizes be offered?

Gernot Marx, the President of the German Interdisciplinary Association for Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine, said the country should look to the example of the United States. “We should… combine the vaccination with a raffle for a prize of hundreds of thousands of euros,” he said. 

The state premier of Saarland, Tobias Hans, also indicated that he was in favour of additional incentives to boost vaccine uptake. “One could think of a raffle in which, for example, a bicycle, a foreign language course or another nice prize is given out among those who are vaccinated,” the politician told the Funke media group. He added that mobile vaccination teams and special campaigns were needed to reach individuals in socially-disadvantaged areas. 

EU health commissioner Stella Kyriakides has also called for vaccination campaigns to be accelerated. She told the Handelsblatt that the EU would achieve its goal of having enough vaccines for 70 percent of adults by the end of July, but with new variants of coronavirus increasing transferability, more than 70 percent would have to be vaccinated “to be safe”. 

Over the past two weeks, the number of vaccinations administered each day in Germany has decreased significantly. According to figures from the Robert Koch Institute, 699.500 vaccine doses were administered on Tuesday, July 6, down from 917.000 the week before and more than a million doses on each of the Tuesdays of the previous three weeks.