gms | German Medical Science

Background: The German COVID-19 vaccination campaign began on 28 December 2020 with a centralized approach. Starting 7 April 2021, medical practices started to administer COVID-19 vaccines and by June 2021, they were responsible for the majority of new vaccinations with over 3 million vaccinations per week. The COVID-19 vaccination campaign was subject to scarcity of the different vaccines, changing criteria for prioritization, and several waves of COVID-19 infections, threatening the limits of the German healthcare system.

Objective: We assess the role of the medical practices regarding their contribution, share, and conduct within the vaccination campaign, to evaluate implications for future pandemics.

Methods: We analyse the up-to-date data records in medical practices in conjunction with publicly available data of vaccinations. These anonymized data comprise information on age groups of the vaccinated, vaccination series, district level, vaccine product, and specialist group of the practice.

Results: The majority of medical practitioners participated in the vaccination campaign, with the largest contribution and participation from the general practitioners. Prioritization was followed. The second part of the vaccination campaign following the need for third and fourth vaccinations was largely carried by the medical practices.

Discussion and implications: While the medical practices were only successively incorporated into the German COVID-19 vaccination campaign, there contribution proved to be extensible by demand and essential, especially in preventing the impact of the pandemic’s later waves in 2021 and transitioning into an endemic phase.

Take away message: COVID-19 showed that nation-wide vaccination campaigns are dependent on the coverage of the German medical practices, whose scalable and experienced vaccinating infrastructure is to be incorporated from a pandemic’s beginnings.