Top health officials in Germany urged citizens on Saturday to get the COVID19 vaccination.
Also, they warned that if the numbers stay low, the hospitals in the country would be brimming with COVID19 cases.
“We need at least 5 million vaccinations for safe autumn and winter,” said the Health Minister, Jens Spahn, in a tweet.
Over 50.9 million people, or 61%, in Germany, are fully vaccinated.
However, the numbers are still less than in other countries in Europe.
While new COVID19 cases have been rising again, daily vaccination rates have been declining for weeks now.
The disease control agency in Germany reported on Saturday 10,835 new COVID19 cases, up from 10,303 the week before.
According to daily Hannoversche Zeitung, the health minister said, “The number of people vaccinated is too low so the health system can manage.”
The German newspaper DPA reported that the minister said 90% of COVID19 cases in the ICU are unvaccinated.
The head of the German Association for Intensive and Emergency Medicine said, if the vaccination rate didn’t go up, there will be a surge in COVID19 cases in the fall.
“If we don’t raise the vaccination rate by October, we’ll have a strong increase of coronavirus cases in ICUs by fall,” said Christian Karagiannidis.
COVID19 restrictions reimplemented?
Christian Drosten, a virologist, said authorities may implement the restrictions again if infection rates keep rising.
He added that some Germans refuse vaccination because the early pandemic phase in Germany wasn’t as devastating as in Europe.
Drosten said about other countries in Europe, “There were many deaths and a lockdown where the military patrolled the streets.”
According to the Robert Koch Institute, 92,325 people in Germany died of COVID19.
However, other European countries have witnessed far more deaths, although their population is less.
Britain had more than 133,000, Italy had 129,000, and France had over 115,000 deaths.
