Angela Merkel sticks to Germany’s under-65 guideline, rejects taking COVID vaccine

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has revealed that she would not take the COVID-19 vaccine developed by British Swedish manufacturer AstraZeneca asserting that she was too old for the jab. Although Germany authorized the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine for mass inoculation, it strictly restricted its administration on people under the age of 65 years. However, in what Merkel termed as “acceptance problem”, hundreds of thousands of Germans have refused to take the AstraZeneca jab after scepticism on its efficacy emerged.

According to a report by the New Scientist, more than 1.4 million doses of AstraZeneca's vaccine are sitting in storage in Germany, while healthcare workers have administered only 240,000 doses. Calling it a "psychological problem", Thomas Mertens, who chairs the country's standing commission on vaccines said that they were pulling all stops to convince the people to accept the vaccine and to gain the trust in the vaccine in the population. 

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Handelsblatt, a German newspaper recently published a report, citing anonymous German health officials, that said AstraZeneca's vaccine was only 8 per cent effective among older people. The fact-checking website Full Fact said Handelsblatt's report was "unreliable," and the German government along with AstraZeneca denied it.

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Over 70,000 deaths 

Since the outbreak erupted in the country, there have been 2,436,478 reported coronavirus cases and over 70,421 fatalities. In the latest development, elementary students in more than half of Germany’s 16 states were allowed to return to school earlier this week after more than two months at home, the first major relaxation of the country's pandemic measures since before Christmas. Kindergartens also reopened their doors for pre-school children, giving much-anticipated relief to stressed parents trying to juggle working from home and childcare during the lockdown. The move was agreed at a meeting between German Chancellor Angela Merkel and state governors two weeks ago and stuck to despite signs that the decline in case numbers seen in the country is flattening out again and even rising in some areas. 

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