Germans will be ‘vaccinated, cured or dead’ by spring, warns health minister

Germans will be 'vaccinated, cured or dead' by the end of this winter, Health Minister Jens Spahn said Monday, as he rushed out extra doses of the coronavirus jab from BioNTech and Pfizer to inject into the arms of the one-third of people in the country who are still not vaccinated. Germany is experiencing record COVID-19 caseloads in the current fourth wave of the pandemic, putting hospital intensive care units under increasing strain — with unvaccinated patients far more likely to become critically ill. “Probably by the end of this winter pretty much everyone in Germany — as has sometimes been cynically put — will be vaccinated, cured or dead,' Spahn told a hastily arranged press conference, in his starkest warning to date of the risks of holding out against vaccination. “But this really is the case: With the very contagious Delta variant, it is very, very likely ... that anyone who is not vaccinated will over the next few months become infected and lack protection.