101 Year Old Citizen First Vaccinated For COVID-19 In Germany

JAKARTA - A 101-year-old woman became the first German citizen to be injected with the anti-coronavirus vaccine on Saturday, December 26, a day before the country's vaccination program officially began, local broadcaster MDR reported.

The woman, who comes from Halberstadt in the Harz mountains, lives in a nursing home where 40 residents and 11 staff members are also vaccinated, said the MDR.

German Health Minister Jens Spahn said earlier on Saturday that trucks were on their way to deliver vaccines to nursing homes.

Residents living in nursing homes are among the first to receive the vaccine.

The federal government plans to distribute more than 1.3 million doses of vaccine by the end of this year to health authorities, after which about 700,000 doses per week starting in January.

"There could be some problems at one point or another at the start, but that's quite normal when a logistically complex process starts," said Spahn.

Germany, which has a population of 83 million, has set up more than 400 vaccination centers in various locations, including Berlin's former Tegel and Tempelhof airports and the Hamburg trade fair.

Vaccinations will be free and available to everyone from mid-2021, when priority groups are expected to have finished vaccinating.

However, there is no obligation for residents to be injected with the anti-COVID vaccine.

The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Germany rose by 14,455 to 1,627,103, according to data from the Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases on Saturday.

The data also shows that more than 29,000 people in Germany have died from the disease.