MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Germany going through a “pandemic of the unvaxxed”

“The fourth wave is here in full force,” said Spahn.

Germany's Health Minister Jens Spahn said his country was going through a “pandemic of the unvaccinated” and called for measures to curb the peak of coronavirus cases registered over the past few days.

“Currently, we are experiencing an essentially unvaccinated pandemic, and it is massive,” he said, noting that intensive care beds were in short supply once again, after occupancy last week was merely 15%. “This is not about harassment” of the unvaccinated, but about “avoiding saturation of the health system,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Society of German Hospitals has reported hospitalizations of seriously ill patients with COVID-19 went up 40% in seven days.

“The fourth wave of the pandemic is advancing, as we feared because the number of vaccinated people is not enough,” confirmed Lothar Wieler, president of the Robert Koch epidemiological surveillance institute, and regretted that sanitary measures were not respected at public places.

“In one day there are again more than 100 deaths. The numbers are worrying,” Wieler added.
“The fourth wave occurs exactly as we imagined, precisely because many did not get vaccinated,” he claimed.

Germany has registered an increase in covid-19 cases in recent days. On Wednesday, more than 20,000 new cases were registered in 24 hours and 194 deaths, according to official figures.

Spahn has requested local authorities at each jurisdiction to tighten up the rules on the unvaccinated in the event of an increase in infections. The minister also pointed out he wanted to speed up the booster vaccines, which are now recommended for those over 70 years of age, six months after completing the first cycle.

The minister is inspired by Israel, “which managed to lower the contagion curve thanks to the third dose.” He insisted that “in some regions, intensive care beds are again insufficient,” and that “the pandemic is far from over.”

“The fourth wave is here in full force. We are living a pandemic of the unvaccinated and it is massive, with increasing numbers of contagion,“ he concluded.

Chancellor Angela Merkel has expressed her concern over the latest developments and said she was ”very sorry“ to see that ”between two and three million Germans over 60 have not yet been vaccinated.”

According to data from the Robert Koch Institute, 66.8% of the population, that is, 55.6 million people in Germany, are fully vaccinated.