Germany's heath chief urges EU to approve vaccine faster

BERLIN (AP) — Germany's health minister expressed impatience Monday that the European Union was still waiting for its regulatory agency to approve a coronavirus vaccine, while other officials urged Germans to forgo Christmas shopping two days before a new hard lockdown will close schools and shut most stories.

Chancellor Angela Merkel and the governors of Germany’s 16 states agreed Sunday to step up the country’s lockdown measures beginning Wednesday and running to Jan. 10 to stop the exponential rise of COVID-19 cases. Merkel said existing restrictions imposed in November failed to significantly reduce the number of new infections. Germany has been hitting records of new daily infections and virus deaths in recent weeks.

Health Minister Jens Spahn said in a series of tweets that Germany, which has built up more than 400 vaccination centers and has activated about 10,000 doctors and medical staff to start mass vaccinations as early as Tuesday, was hamstrung by the lack of regulatory approval.

The vaccine developed by Germany's BioNTech and American drugmaker Pfizer has been authorized for use in Britain, the United States, Canada and other countries, but it's still waiting for approval by the European Medicines Agency, or EMA, and can therefore not be used in Germany yet.

The EMA has a Dec. 29 meeting on vaccines but Spahn said the agency's assessment and approval of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine should “take place as quickly as possible.”

“This is also about the trust of the citizens in the European Union’s capacity to act,” Spahn wrote. “Every day that we can start sooner with the vaccinations lessens the suffering and protects those who are the most vulnerable.”

Spahn had previously said that going through EMA approval was the right path.

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