An interesting article in the German online magazine Multipolar on the many German COVID-19 vaccine ‘profiteers’ (BioNTech of course, but also lipid-suppliers Merck and Evonik, the Strüngmann brothers, the city of Mainz etc.) also contains some interesting observations on Germany’s own COVID-19 vaccine orders.
Author Karsten Montag notes that Germany has ordered some 672 million Covid vaccine doses: 557 million already at the height of the pandemic under then German Health Minister Jens Spahn and another 115 million under his successor Karl Lauterbach. But Germany has only in fact used 192 million doses (as can be seen here at the Ministry of Health’s handy ‘Vaccine Dashboard’).
Montag calculates that at the current relatively paltry vaccination rates in Germany, perhaps another one million doses will be used altogether by the end of this year. But what then about the remaining 479 million doses that have been ordered?
Well, not all of them have in fact been delivered. But Montag notes that in response to a question from the member of the German Bundestag Thomas Dietz, the German Government has now admitted to discarding 114 million COVID-19 vaccine doses which had reached their date of expiration by August 31st and of donating another 128 million to other countries.
This gives a total of 242 million COVID-19 vaccine doses which the German government has either discarded or donated – 50 million more than it has used!
Robert Kogon is the pen name of a widely-published journalist covering European affairs. Subscribe to his Substack and follow him on X.
