Germany’s Chancellor elect Olaf Scholz, who will be sworn in next week (yes, Merkel really is gone), said last night that his government would put a new law making vaccination compulsory before parliament within weeks.
Scholz did say however, that he wouldn’t whip government MP’s to vote with him. They would have a free vote.
Scholz is being pressured to order a full national lockdown because of rising case numbers and hospitalisations. He has said that vaccination, rather than lockdown, is the way through the pandemic.
Speaking to Bild newspaper Scholz said:
“The current issue facing us is vaccination and boosters, which is a huge task. It is the fact that so many have not been vaccinated that is the reason we have a problem as a country today.
You can’t just watch the situation heartlessly. If we had a higher vaccination rate, we would have a different situation.”
The new Chancellor wants to give 30 million jabs before Christmas. After everyone has had a chance to be vaccinated, by February or March next year, the jabs would then become compulsory, if Scholz can get it through parliament.
Polls in Germany suggests that 70 per cent of the population favours compulsory vaccination.
Interestingly, the German vaccination rate is around the same as the UK’s, with 68.5 per cent of adults fully jabbed. How long then before the UK government says that it is considering mandating the jabs for all?
Not long I’d say.
