GERMANY
The Jail Card
German authorities have started prosecuting individuals that jump the coronavirus vaccine line, amid a slow rollout of the inoculations in the European Union nation, the Washington Post reported.
The probes follow multiple incidents where politicians and police officers received vaccines earlier than scheduled, prompting prosecutors to charge them with fraud, embezzlement or accepting an undue advantage.
One of the biggest cases involves hundreds of police officers in the city of Dresden, who prosecutors say, illegally accepted early vaccinations.
Line-jumping has also prompted lawmakers to propose fines of up to $30,000. Even so, critics say the authorities should focus their attention on boosting public support for vaccines.
Germany has vaccinated about 16 percent of its population, compared to the nearly 40 percent of Americans who have received at least one shot.
Authorities have been blamed for the slow rollout – the country has held back about 20 to 40 percent of its supply.
This backlog also includes vaccines from AstraZeneca: Almost one-third of about 5.6 million AstraZeneca doses delivered to Germany have not been used.
Meanwhile, some German cities have reported that half of all people with appointments to receive the vaccine do not show up.
Europe’s shifting stances regarding the AstraZeneca vaccine have not helped with the rising vaccine skepticism in Germany: Less than 70 percent of Germans say they want to get vaccinated.
Analysts said that officials are sending a contradictory message through these investigations, instead of persuading as many people to get the vaccine.
“What we could learn from the Americans is to do things a bit less bureaucratically, a bit faster and with somewhat more courage,” said Gerd Landsberg, head of the German Association of Towns and Municipalities.
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