The Chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel, has announced that mandatory vaccine will not be applied even for health workers. The Chancellor fears that such a move will help to build trust within the population and allow people to decide whether they want the vaccine or not. This statement was made on Tuesday at a press conference at the Robert Koch Institute (RKI).
Even though vaccination is not compulsory, figures from the RKI shows that 80% of the population are in favour of being vaccinated. Nevertheless, Angela Merkel still won’t apply a roll-out of mandatory Covid jabs as she thinks that such a move will break the trust of the population in the government.
Compared to its neighbouring countries, Germany has taken a different path. France announced on Monday that all healthcare, nursing home and care-workers must be vaccinated before September 15 or fines and sanctions will be apply. Greece also took the same decision back in July 12. It also added a new temporary law under which only people who have been vaccinated or tested negative within the prior three days can access indoor spaces such as restaurants and bars.
Despite the sluggish start of the vaccination campaign in Germany mainly due to reluctance to approve Oxford’s AstraZeneca over blood-clotting issues and supplies, almost 59% of the population has been vaccinated one time and over a third of the country have already received the two doses. Even though, the government stated that it has along way to go to reach 85%-90% fully covered population as recommended by the RKI.
