Berlin Dec. 1 (BUS): German Chancellor-designate Olaf Schulz spoke on Tuesday in favor of making vaccination against Covid-19 mandatory by the beginning of March at the latest.
“My suggestion is that the time frame for vaccinating everyone is not too late. So my suggestion is early February or early March,” Schultz was quoted by German news agency (dpa) as telling Bild TV channel.
He stressed, however, that the power to introduce compulsory vaccination rests with the German parliament, adding that he believes a bill should be introduced before the end of the year.
Schulz stressed that he believed the matter should be a “matter of conscience” for individual Bundestag members, meaning that MPs should not vote on partisan grounds.
His comments came as Germany faces its fourth and largest wave of coronavirus infections so far.
Schulz and his centre-left coalition government have come under pressure to operate as hospitals in parts of the country that are brimming with Covid-19 patients.
Angela Merkel’s spokeswoman, Stephen Seibert, announced Tuesday that stricter measures to stem transmission, such as additional contact restrictions for unvaccinated people, would be completed by Thursday, after the interim chancellor held talks with her successor Schulz and state leaders in Germany.
During the conference call, several prime ministers called on the federal government to “quickly start” compulsory vaccination.
Also discussed was the German booster vaccine campaign, which it was agreed would now be overrun, with federal and state governments intending to make as many as 30 million possible vaccines between now and Christmas. To this end, pharmacists will now be allowed to administer punches.
Nearly 55 million adults have now been fully vaccinated against the coronavirus in Germany. That represents a vaccination rate of 79.1 percent of the population aged 18 or over, according to figures released Tuesday by the Robert Koch Institute (RKI).
Among people ages 12 to 17, the rate of those who are fully vaccinated is 46.1 percent, according to RKI data.
Earlier on Tuesday, Germany’s Constitutional Court issued rulings indicating that there is room for maneuver for policymakers in the current fourth wave, including the possibility of a return of blanket lockdowns.
The court in Karlsruhe found that the federal government acted lawfully when it imposed curfews and contact restrictions during the third wave of the pandemic earlier in 2021.
The court declared that the measures had significantly interfered with various basic rights, but were ultimately compatible with the country’s basic law given the “extreme danger of the epidemic”.
In a second case, judges dismissed complaints from parents and students against the school closures he had ordered at the time. However, for the first time, the court recognized the “right of children and youth to schooling vis-à-vis the state”.
There were signs that the German wave might reach a plateau on Monday, when the RKI index reported a so-called reproduction value of 0.93, with a tendency to sink further. The number, on average, indicates the number of other people to whom each infected person transmits the virus.
Virologist Hendrik Strick called this a “very good sign,” and told RTL media group there was reason to be cautiously optimistic.
MI