The cities of Frankfurt and Offenbach, both in Hesse, are offering volunteers the chance to be vaccinated ahead of schedule, with the AstraZeneca vaccine against COVID-19, provided they meet certain requirements.

AstraZeneca supply going to waste

Over the past couple of months, a debate has raged over the use of the vaccine, due to its connection with rare blood clots. In Germany, the vaccine was temporarily halted, before later being only offered to people over the age of 60. As a result of this, public faith in the vaccine is dipping, and a significant number of vaccination appointments have been cancelled or ignored. A large supply of the vaccine is now building up. If not used, the surplus doses will have to be thrown out.

In order to combat this, the cities of Frankfurt and Offenbach, in the federal state of Hesse, are offering some people the chance to "jump the queue", if they are willing to be vaccinated with the AstraZeneca jab.

“Vaccine jumpers” in Offenbach

In Frankfurt, the Impfbrücke Frankfurt platform allows people in priority groups 1 and 2 to register if they would like to be inoculated with the AstraZeneca jab. "With the move-up procedure, the good logistics will be further refined, and we are pleased that the people of Frankfurt can now be offered this additional service," says Dierk Dallwitz, Managing Director of DRK (German Red Cross) Frankfurt.

In Offenbach, anyone over the age of 60 can register as a “vaccine jumper”. However, you must be able to reach the vaccination centre within 30 minutes. The new system does not replace the official Hessian vaccination registration portal, and so anyone offered a vaccine through this system should cancel their regular appointment afterwards.

Previously, only vaccinations that were drawn up for another person and subsequently refused on-site, or when a doctor advised a patient against taking the jab, were allowed to be administered to someone else. "Until now, it was only allowed to spontaneously inoculate other people with syringes that had already been drawn up with a vaccine and were refused on-site," explained Felix Schwenke, the mayor of Offenbach.