Status: 08/10/2021 5:37 p.m.
Saline solution instead of vaccine: The vaccination scandal in Schortens (Friesland district) is spreading. The Ministry of Social Affairs, the district and the police have informed the public about the extent.
“It is about a total of 8,557 people who may have received no vaccination protection in whole or in part, although they assume so,” said Friesland District Administrator Sven Ambrosy (SPD) on Tuesday in Jever. The affected people would now be written to by the district to catch up on their possibly missing vaccination. There is also a citizen hotline at the number (0800) 0 00 51 60 as well as a FAQ info page switched. An employee of the Friesland vaccination center is said to have injected saline solution instead of vaccines. “We have well-founded suspicions of danger,” said Peter Beer, deputy head of the Wilhelmshaven / Friesland police station, at the press conference. During the interrogation of witnesses from mid-June to the end of June, there were concrete indications of further cases. Beer did not give any details on this.
Seniors, nurses, educators and doctors affected
Those affected are said to be above all people over 70 years old who visited the Friesland vaccination center in Schortens-Roffhausen between March 5 and April 20. Employees of hospices and mobile care services, educators and doctors were also vaccinated during the period in question.
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Crisis team: repeating the vaccination is not a problem
In Hanover, the Lower Saxony corona crisis team commented on the incidents on Tuesday. As the deputy head Claudia Schröder said, those affected can now book appointments for the vaccination centers in Friesland, Wilhelmshaven, Ammerland and Wittmund. “Since we do not know whether, how many and who is specifically affected, and we are talking about a period of seven weeks, we have offered everyone to repeat it,” said Schröder, who emphasized: “A repeat vaccination is advisable even then and unproblematic if the vaccination was successful. That would not increase the protection in that case, but it is completely harmless. And so this is now the method of choice. ” The President of the State Health Office, Matthias Pulz, said that additional vaccinations are harmless to health.
Vaccination centers are still available to those affected
“We will actually stop operating the inpatient vaccination centers on September 30th. For this group of people who are affected here, we will definitely organize a second vaccination on site,” said Schröder. The district has already ensured that. And: According to the information, the vaccination certificates of the persons concerned remain valid.
District: Antibody tests not useful this time
The case became known at the end of April – but it was assumed that only six syringes were filled with saline solution. Those who might be affected were tested for antibodies and vaccinated again in the absence of antibodies. This time, however, antibody tests are not useful, said the district of Friesland: “Since the vaccinations were carried out months ago, the antibody dynamics cannot be assessed individually with certainty. Thus, antibody tests do not offer good orientation in the current situation,” it says on the website of the District.
Many questions, but the accused gives no answers
At the moment it is completely unclear how many of the 8,557 potential cases were actually injected with saline. “The fact is, we do not know how many of them are unvaccinated or only partially vaccinated,” said crisis team leader Heiger Scholz. “It may be that only every third syringe was manipulated, it may be that there are no further cases. Unfortunately, the woman is not cooperative with the police, she is silent.”
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Political motive is being examined
When it came to light that the suspect employee had injected six people with table salt instead of the Biontech active ingredient on April 21, the woman said she wanted to cover up the fact that an ampoule had fallen down. A four-eyes principle was then introduced in the vaccination centers in Lower Saxony in order to avoid such cases in the future. The woman was released after the case became known. However, the number of those affected grew and raised doubts about the presentation. The police found that the nurse had shared vaccination-critical texts on social media. The specialist commissioner for politically motivated crime took over the investigation.
Lawyers: There was no further action
The woman’s lawyers reject a political motivation of their client, as well as the extent of the acts now suspected by the authorities. The salt injections on April 21 were a “one-time incident”. “In particular, there were no other days on which the vaccine was not administered in the prescribed amount by our client,” said a statement.
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