Germany is rapidly moving away from the target of driving new COVID infections down below 35 cases per every 100,000 citizens—and that is a bad omen for hopes that the lockdown may be further eased at the end of March. With more than 14,000 new infections reported by the Robert Koch Institute for yesterday, Germany is being thrown back into a negative pandemic dynamic which the Institute characterized as “the third wave arriving.” And so far, only 8% of the population have received the first shot of the vaccine, in 10 weeks of campaign.
In an interview to Funke Mediengruppe, Minister President of Germany’s state of Thuringia Bodo Ramelow, called for using Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine. “In my opinion, the Sputnik V vaccine provides a great opportunity for a quicker return to normal life,” he said today. “I call upon the German government to let the EU understand that a necessary amount of the vaccine should be requested from Sputnik V manufacturers right now.”
