German Finance Minister: Expect to Vaccinate up to 5 Million People a Week by End-April

18 April 2021

By David Barwick – Frankfurt (Econostream) – German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz on Sunday said that Germany would be vaccinating as many as five million people a week against Covid-19 within ten days.

In an interview with German weekly Welt am Sonntag, Scholz said, ‘The current plans are that by the end of April we will be vaccinating four to five million citizens per week. This then increases steadily, soon we will also be able to include company doctors in the campaign; by the end of June we can reach the ten million mark.’

‘All calculations’ confirm that in the summer, everyone will be able to get vaccinated, he said, noting that Biontech had just announced additional shipments of its vaccine. That ‘is good news, even if there are setbacks elsewhere’, he said.

Older people can also be vaccinated with AstraZeneca, he said. ‘Recently, there has been a real run on it despite all the prophecies of doom’, he added.

Scholz said he hoped people would be able to travel for summer holidays. ‘But that depends on many conditions, including how the pandemic develops in our neighbouring countries’, he said. ‘The picture is still too unclear to venture more precise forecasts.’

Although Germany is now in its third wave, Scholz said he was planning ‘on being able to sit in the beer garden in the summer and watch the next Bundesliga season in the stadium.’