It is still not enough. Scientists and politicians agree on this. On Wednesday, the Robert Koch Institute for Germany reported a corona vaccination rate of 68 percent. The German willingness to vaccinate has left a lot to be desired for months. Only two thirds of Germans have protected themselves against Covid disease with a vaccine.
Germany – a country that refuses to vaccinate? Is this right? In any case, it is noticeable that there are particularly many skeptics in this country. But there are many reasons. They have to do with a distanced attitude towards politics, with fears, with a failed communication. But there are also abnormalities that go beyond that.
Less trust in the government
The health researcher Cornelia Betsch has brought to light concrete reasons for the refusal to vaccinate through her regular surveys. Compared to those who have been vaccinated, those who have not been vaccinated are less worried about the overloading of the health system and consider it less likely to become infected. They trust less the government and science, rather cling to conspiracy narratives – such as the one that Corona is a hoax and man-made. Those who oppose also tend to consider the measures to be exaggerated and stick to them less.
However, if you look at the Western European countries in comparison, you immediately see: Austria, Switzerland and Germany have the most unvaccinated citizens. With a lot of decency, Sweden will follow on the problem scale at some point. In figures it looks like this: Austria 24.8 percent unvaccinated, Switzerland 24.4 percent, Germany 22.8. Iceland and Portugal are best where practically all citizens are completely vaccinated against Corona.
The Swiss sociologist Oliver Nachtwey explains the phenomenon with the strongly federal character of the three German-speaking countries and the encounter with a certain skepticism towards the federal government with cultural peculiarities. Nachtwey has been researching the corona protests in German-speaking countries since the beginning of the pandemic.
Wholeness, self-realization and esotericism
Nachtwey says that the basic tension between the federal states and the federal government in Austria and Germany – in Switzerland these are the cantons – was increased during the pandemic. This also increases skepticism about measures prescribed from above.
In the German-speaking area, cultural trends that have emerged over the past 50 years have an influence. In Germany and Switzerland this is anthroposophy, which is very strong in former alternative milieus. This is about holism, self-realization and also about esotericism. That also plays a role in Austria. Originally, these views were more widespread in left-wing milieus.
According to Nachtwey, there is also another phenomenon that applies to all three countries: right-wing politicization that comes together with cultural characteristics, reinforces them and thus leads, in a toxic mixture, to refusal to vaccinate.
According to a Forsa survey, vaccination refusals in Germany vote to a large extent for the AfD. About 50 percent of them are AfD voters, says the survey, 15 percent are voters of the lateral thinker party Die Basis. Nachtwey has done its own surveys in Telegram groups and sees connections here. Many of the people he interviewed switched from the Greens, the SPD and the Left to the AfD or stated that they would later vote for the AfD.
Unvaccinated people in Western and Central Europe
Sociologists see another phenomenon that has an impact on the current vaccination issue in the state’s strong orientation towards science. Such a scientific approach produces a need for spirituality and a strong skepticism of authority in society. Increasingly, because of their high level of education, people were confident enough to judge science for themselves. The big picture is being called into question and science is despised.
The Max Planck Institute has also dealt with vaccination readiness in Europe and with the unvaccinated. Here the researchers looked at the whole of Europe. Eastern European countries in particular stand out. The researchers demonstrated a west-east difference: In most of the Eastern European and Baltic states, vaccination insecurity and refusal to vaccinate is more pronounced than in the other regions in the west, south and north of Europe.
In the summer 2021 survey published in October, around 18 percent of respondents in all 28 countries stated that they had not been vaccinated. There are big differences between countries. Malta, Denmark and Spain top the vaccination rates, while Romania and Bulgaria – the countries with the lowest vaccination rates – only had around 28 and 21 percent, respectively. In Romania 37.8 percent of the population are now fully vaccinated, in Bulgaria it is 24.7 percent.
The healthier, the more skeptical
The researchers found that the economic situation has a visible influence: people in the lower quarter of the income distribution were more likely not to want to be vaccinated or were undecided, while the opposite was true for the higher income quarters. People with higher education were less skeptical. This finding was most pronounced in Bulgaria, Romania and Slovakia. People between 50 and 65 years of age are more likely to reject the vaccine than older respondents, this is the case in almost all countries. On average in Europe, women are more hesitant than men. In Hungary, Portugal and Switzerland, however, there are more hesitant men.
The healthier people are, the more likely they are to reject the Corona vaccination or to be undecided. This difference was most noticeable in Hungary, Lithuania, Luxembourg and Switzerland. People who know someone who got seriously ill with the virus are more willing to get vaccinated.
.