I’ll tell you how Germany prepares for mass vaccination
All the details on the distribution plan for Covid vaccines in Germany. The in-depth study by Pierluigi Mennitti from Berlin
With the arrival of more coronavirus vaccines on the line, attention shifts to the logistical machine that the various national states are called upon to organize to support (hopefully) mass vaccination. And particular interest is arousing, at least in Italy, the preparation work in Germany, a country considered particularly efficient in dealing with organizational emergencies. And if during the first pandemic wave the efficiency of the German health system had been observed with some suspicion (remember the interminable discussions on the relatively low numbers of infections and deaths in Germany, on the accounting methods, on the amount of tampons performed, up to the fake news about the Germans hiding the dead), in this second wave the judgments are accompanied by the most sought-after hyperboles. The German organizational machine is "powerful" and the task forces of the Länder, spurred on by the Federal Minister of Health Jens Spahn, are equipping themselves for "the greatest vaccination work ever done".
These are D-Day tones, used in the pages of Italian newspapers often as a counterbalance to the organizational misery of our home, lost between regions withoverdue plans (apparently seven) and Calabrian health commissioners who come and go more often. But how is Germany really preparing itself? What are the strengths of your plan and what are the weaknesses or uncertainties that still need to be corrected?
If German efficiency can (within certain limits which are also historical) become a model for Italian action, it is good to tell it, sheltering it from military rhetoric.
Although the Bundeswehr soldiers have long been engaged in the management of the pandemic crisis, as numerical support to the staff of the health offices in trouble in the tracing of the infected: a contribution that has helped some offices not to end up overwhelmed by the constantly increasing numbers, but which it did not prevent the fact that, at a certain point, even the German effort to reconstruct cases went out of control, so much so that it had to resort to the mini-lockdown that has affected the whole country for three weeks. The same army logistics will still be put back into the field for the transport and in part the storage of the vaccine bottles, especially those of the American-German duo Pfizer-Biontech which needs special storage at temperatures around -70 degrees.
The first hub will be represented by the 60 sorting centers that the government has asked the 16 Länder to prepare throughout the national territory by mid-December. Three weeks to get up and running immediately, in the hope that doses will be available in the second half of next month. The individual regions, also through the municipalities, then have the possibility of establishing additional vaccination centers and even mobile units, which will be useful especially in the first phase when risk groups such as the elderly and the sick have to be vaccinated. Within this federal framework, each Land is then organizing its own logistics strategy. North Rhine-Westphalia has announced 53 regional vaccine centers, Hesse about thirty, Bavaria over 90.
In Berlin, where the operations were directed by former firefighter Albercht Broemme, the man to whom the city owes the 1,000-seat emergency hospital for less severe cases of coronavirus built in record time in some halls of the Fair, 6 centers have been identified that will have to vaccinate the first 400,000 people at a rate of 20,000 per day. The chosen areas cover a little of the entire city: the same hospital in the Fair, the old airports of Tegel and Tempelhof, an ice stadium, a velodrome, a former industrial area redeveloped into an arena for major events. Broemme assures Berline Zeitung that the outfitting work has already begun and that the deadlines will be respected. He can be trusted. Each center will contain six vaccination stations, while each person will have to charge an hour, from the moment they enter the center until they can go home: this includes the 30 minute wait after the injection to make sure there are no immediate side effects.
While waiting for the federal government to define the priority criteria (the suggestions of the group of wise men will probably be accepted: the elderly, the sick, health workers, then school staff, officials of essential services such as police and health centers), Broemme reminds us that they can only bring those who have personally received the invitation to vaccinate. But since we are not in technological Asia, the invitation to present will be a paper letter and will arrive by post. Collection of lists, preparation of letters, enveloping, shipping. An elaborate procedure, even though the German post continues to honor its reputation and, normally, a letter arrives at its destination within one day (holiday season permitting). While it is not yet clear how the sick and the elderly with mobility difficulties will be able to reach the centers and spend the necessary hour there.
The organizational effort of the Länder is therefore fundamental for the first phase of vaccination, all centered on the centers, while only from the second phase, which could start from mid-January and extend until April, the vaccines will also be available from family doctors and in clinics. like everyone else, including the flu.
And the leader of the CDU-CSU fraction in parliament Ralph Brinkhaus is not at all sure that everything is going well in the regions. In an interview with Spiegel , the conservative politician casts more than a few doubts when he points out, twice, that the logistical organization must proceed quickly and convincingly. "I hope that regional governments are working hard on the issue that cannot be delegated to lower administrative levels such as health offices," he said, "vaccination must be the responsibility of presidents." And when asked whether he does not believe that the central government should take on the task of management, he replies: "No, but you must be sure that vaccination is possible throughout the federal territory, in large districts, in cities and even in rural areas" .
The German newspapers describe the situation in calm tones, highlighting for example how the problem of the recruitment of health personnel and doctors necessary for this enormous effort is still unsolved. The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reports an estimate by the Baden-Württenberg Ministry of Health that in the hottest phase of vaccination (the second phase) the region will need the availability of 1,260 doctors to ensure all the assumed services. And a reserve to draw upon has not yet been identified.
In the meantime, an offer has come from the car manufacturer Opel, which has made some of its plants available to the respective regions to be converted into vaccination centers: large warehouses, ample parking facilities, good connections to public transport. Areas are available at the historic site in Rüsselsheim (Hesse), Eisenach (Thuringia) and Kaiserslautern (Rhineland-Palatinate).
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/vi-racconto-come-la-germania-si-prepara-alla-vaccinazione-di-massa/ on Wed, 25 Nov 2020 14:09:31 +0000.