Germany’s anti-vaccination history is riddled with anti-Semitism

Jewish people were blamed for spreading disease; Denying the need for public-health measures, including vaccination, slipped into tacitly implying that the disease would carry off the Jewish and the poor

Last year, I felt lucky to be an American in Germany. The government carried out a comprehensive public-health response, and for the most part, people wore masks in public. More recently, COVID-19 cases have surged here, with new infections reaching a single-day zenith in late March. Germany has lagged behind the United States and the United Kingdom in vaccination efforts, and German public-health regulators have restricted use of the AstraZeneca vaccine to people over 60, after seven cases of rare cerebral blood clots. Key public-health measures, particularly lockdowns and vaccination, have been divisive. Among some people, even the magnitude of the virus’s infectious threat has been in question.

FULL STORY Germany’s anti-vaccination history is riddled with antisemitism (The Atlantic)
Jewish people were blamed for spreading disease, and considered expendable victims

Photo: A COVID-19 test centre in a shipping container in a marketplace in Bonn, Germany, in April (AP Photo/Martin Meissner)
ID: 20210427001538034732