BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany has identified six sites in the capital Berlin to be used as centers to administer the new coronavirus vaccination, an official at the civil protection agency said on Saturday, calling for volunteers to carry out the work.
The sites, which include Berlin’s trade fair as well Tempelhof and Tegel airports, will be set up by mid-December, said Albrecht Broemme, project manager for vaccination centers at the Federal Agency for Technical Relief (THW).
“We’ll have centres that are easily reachable by public transport,” he said, adding that volunteers would be needed to get the work done.
He added that although some volunteers would require a medical background, “…we don’t need chief physicians and such highly qualified people.”
Germany is scouting trade fair halls and airport terminals to use as potential mass vaccination centres, as it draws up plans to inoculate the nation as soon as the first coronavirus shot gains European approval.
Under the national vaccine strategy, approved by its cabinet in October, Germany has asked the states to identify central vaccination centres which will be supplemented by mobile teams who go into care homes.
(Reporting by Fanny Brodersen, Holger Koerner and Fabrizio Bensch; Writing by Christoph Steitz; editing by Louise Heavens)
