At a press conference in Berlin, Angela Merkel said that there were no plans to make vaccinations mandatory in Germany. However, the German Chancellor did stress the importance of the vaccine and hinted that it could be made compulsory in the future.
On Tuesday, Chancellor Angela Merkel dismissed the idea of making coronavirus vaccinations compulsory in Germany. “We do not intend to go down this road,” the Chancellor said after visiting the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin. She added that Germany was at a point where it has “more vaccines than we have people who want to be vaccinated.”
Despite this, Merkel suggested that vaccines might be made mandatory in the future, should the coronavirus situation worsen in Germany. “I'm not ruling out that this might be talked about differently in a few months,” she said. “But at the moment we have said we don't want compulsory vaccinations; we want to promote vaccinations.”
While Merkel did rule out making vaccines compulsory in the immediate future, she also emphasised the importance of getting vaccinated. “Vaccination not only protects you but also always protects someone close to you, someone you love,” she said. “It also prevents the health system from becoming overburdened.” She also said that to cope with the coronavirus and emerging variants, 85 percent of people between 12 and 59 need to be vaccinated. There would also need to be a vaccination rate of 90 percent in people over the age of 60.
Federal Health Minister Jens Spahn also joined the call for people to get vaccinated. “The more people who get vaccinated, the better we will get through autumn and winter,” he said. “Vaccinate also to protect our children and young people,” he urged, asking people to consider the fact that no vaccines have been approved for children under 12. “The vaccine is there; appointments are easy to get. Take the opportunity and get vaccinated.”
Merkel reminded people to follow rules concerning distance and basic hygiene and said she hoped that another lockdown would not be necessary in the case of a fourth wave of infections. “We are of course doing everything we can to prevent that,” she said. Spahn and Merkel also refused to rule out charging people who haven’t been vaccinated for coronavirus tests in the future.