417,000 people in Germany vaccinated so far

BERLIN. KAZINFORM - Up to 417,000 people in Germany have received COVID-19 jabs since the vaccination program began on Dec. 27, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) announced on Thursday, Xinhua reports.

More than 201,000 health care workers, 168,000 residents of nursing homes have got vaccinated, according to the RKI data.

Due to the initial shortage of doses, people over 80 as well as residents and staff of nursing and old people's homes will remain priority groups to be inoculated, according to the German government.

«We want to protect those first who are most vulnerable. Once those in need of care and the elderly are vaccinated, the pandemic loses much of its horror,» Minister of Health Jens Spahn told a press conference on Wednesday.

On Wednesday, the European Commission approved a second COVID-19 vaccine, developed by U.S. company Moderna, following a positive recommendation from the European Medicines Agency.

With the already approved Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, Germany is expecting a total of around 130 million vaccine doses this year, according to Spahn.

According to the latest daily situation report by the RKI, «vaccination is being carried out at different rates and with different focuses in the federal states.»

In ten federal states, vaccinations for priority occupations were in the focus, while the majority of jabs were given to people aged 80 and above in two other federal states.