Regional leaders of two German states badly hit by a third wave of the pandemic have urged the rest of the country to re-impose a tough lockdown to flatten infection rates, as a leading virologist said Germany was in a “serious and complicated” stage of the pandemic.
In a joint letter reported on by Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper, Bavaria’s conservative premier, Markus Söder, and the Green head of Baden-Württemberg, Winfried Kretschmann, said the situation was “more serious than many believe”.
“That is why we must live up to our responsibility now and not discuss it any longer,” the two politicians said, in an apparent swipe at other state leaders seen as reluctant to enforce an emergency break on easing restrictions.
Despite the political impasse over another lockdown and an already stuttering vaccine rollout, Germany on Tuesday heeded growing concerns over a rare blood-clotting condition and, alongside Canada and several other European countries, chosen to restrict use of the AstraZeneca jab to those aged 60 and over.
Angela Merkel said on Tuesday night that her government “cannot ignore” the latest findings of her country’s vaccine regulator, which has reported 31 German cases where people who had received the Oxford-developed jab developed cerebral venous sinus thrombosis, in most cases accompanied by lowered platelets (thrombocytopenia).
Among women under the age of 70, Germany has recorded one case of blood clotting in every 61,400 vaccinations, making the disorder extremely rare.
A previous decision to resume using the AstraZeneca jab had rested on findings showing the risk of blood clots to be less than one in a million cases, which remains the case among men under 70.
Because Germany had initially cleared the vaccine for only the under-65s, a majority of recipients in the country so far have been high-priority care workers, about two-thirds of them women under 70.