© dpa
The last remaining Berlin Corona vaccination centre in the Ring-Center closes at the end of the year.
The Senate's contract to operate the centre expires on December 31, a spokesperson for the German Red Cross (DRK) announced on Friday, after the "Tagesspiegel" reported. This also affects mobile vaccination teams.
In other federal states, vaccination centres also close down at the turn of the year. On the one hand, federal funding will then come to an end. On the other hand, it is generally assumed that the level of protection against Corona in the population is higher than it was one or two years ago, partly due to quite good vaccination rates.
At the height of the pandemic, there were up to six large Corona vaccination centres in Berlin, plus numerous smaller vaccination centres. Recently, the vaccination numbers have been steadily declining, even though there was an increase in the Ring Centre after the arrival of new vaccines against the Omikron variant in autumn, with up to 1000 vaccinations daily, according to the DRK.
Since the start of the Berlin vaccination campaign at the end of December 2020, almost 3.5 million vaccinations have been administered in the vaccination centres operated by the five aid organisations and with mobile vaccination teams as well as vaccination buses, as the DRK spokesperson said. The DRK managed the vaccination campaign together with the Arbeiter-Samariter-Bund (ASB), the Maltesers, the Johanniters and the DLRG.
In future, Corona vaccinations, like other vaccinations, are to be carried out in the so-called regular system, i.e. primarily by doctors in private practice.