On Thursday morning, Health Minister Jens Spahn tweeted in celebration of another successful milestone in the vaccine rollout.
According to Spahn, 1.3 million residents of Germany received a vaccine shot on Wednesday alone, meaning that just under half of the population have now had at least one jab.
READ ALSO: Major milestone: more than 40 million Germans vaccinated against Covid
But behind the fanfare and positive PR, what is the experience of getting vaccinated really like in Germany - especially for internationals?
When we surveyed our readers on their experiences of securing (or trying to secure) a jab, their responses painted a picture of a confusing and uneven inoculation drive, where persistence, luck and contacts could determine who ended up with a shot in their arm, and who got put on a waiting list.
Of the 101 people we surveyed, 65 percent had already had at least one of their vaccine appointments in Germany, or had managed to book one for the future.
Just under 30 percent said they hadn't been able to get an appointment at all.
Describing how they'd secured their appointment, a significant proportion of the respondents said they felt they'd been lucky.
Meanwhile, of those that had managed to schedule an appointment, 48 percent said the slot was less than one month away, while 13 percent said theirs was 1-2 months away, and 39 percent said they would be waiting more than two months for their appointment.
James Coleman, 59, from Goch, described his appointment as a “pure fluke”, while Alison Cuff, 49, from Berlin, said her jab appointment had come as a "complete surprise".
“I was offered it out of the blue when at my doctors for an unrelated reason," she explained. "I felt like one of the luckiest people in the country."
In several cases, people had tried to maximise their luck by taking a number of different routes to getting a vaccine simultaneously: registering with numerous doctors, signing up at centralised vaccine centres or on state portals, or trying to go through their employers.
While he had no luck with the majority of these, Hesse's central portal eventually offered him his first vaccine appointment on June 2nd.
“It was like fighting to get a concert ticket, like the Beatles came to back to life and they're doing one final concert,” said 30-year-old Berliner Mariana Capa.
No centralised system
One of the most common complaints about Germany's vaccination drive was the lack of a centralised system for booking, or at least finding information about, available vaccines.
With Germany's convoluted federal system creating different approaches for registering for a vaccine, and different approaches to prioritisation, many people felt that the vaccine rollout had ended up as a kind of postcode lottery.
"It might have been a good idea to use a centralised system rather than each state having different ways to register for a vaccine," said Angeeka Biswas, 34, from Frankfurt.
In the sluggish early months of Germany's vaccination drive, vaccine appointments could only be made at large, state-run vaccine centres by those in certain priority groups, but the system later opened up to include doctors' surgeries, and even pop-up neighbourhood vaccination clinics.
At different times, different types of vaccine were also available to different groups of people, with AstraZeneca first being recommended for people under 65 and then later only for people over 60.
Then, AstraZeneca was opened up in GP surgeries to people who wanted it, which was mainly younger people who weren't in a priority group.
"There are a lot of mixed messages coming out of Germany," said Jessica, 39, from Berlin.
Having a centralised system could have been useful in helping people find an appointment and ensuring excess doses didn't go to waste, added Rose K., 27, from Kalsruhe.
"The squeaky wheel gets the oil"
Several respondents to our survey commented on the fact that, with the lifting of prioritisation nationwide on June 7th, the most persistent people were often being vaccinated before older people, or those with health issues.
READ ALSO: German cabinet approves decision to open up vaccines to all starting on Monday
"I have watched colleagues and friends considerably younger than me with no comorbidities and not in any priority category get vaccinated by their family doctors," said Alan Bochum, 63, who lives in North Rhine-Westphalia.
"Meanwhile, my doctor is not vaccinating, and no doctor I can find will vaccinate anyone who is not in the family of one of their patients - so it is pretty aggravating."
“It's disgraceful that over 60's can't get an appointment," agreed Elaine Bannister, a 63-year-old resident of East Westphalia-Lippe. "Even though we are priority group three.”
People come to their vaccination appointments in the MV Werften company canteen, which was converted into a pop-up vaccination centre on June 13th. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Gregor Fischer
Elaine Lynch, 33, who lives in Berlin, spent hours on Doctolib attempting to book an appointment - but only managed to secure one when a friend happened to be online at the right time.
"Even though I was in a priority group because I have asthma, I couldn't get an appointment no matter how hard I tried," she said.
"I eventually got lucky because a friend sent a link to a place with open appointments one morning, and I got the last one! Honestly, it was such a stressful experience and so chaotic and badly managed."
There was a strong feeling among respondents that, since the lifting of the priority lists, the vaccine roll-out had become a free-for-all, with everyone scrambling to get their hands on limited doses of vaccines.
A lot of people found it especially unfair that the young, healthy, and above all, persistent, were getting in line before those who were more vulnerable, but less clued-up, or with less time on their hands.
The feeling that noisiness counted more than need was perfectly summed up by Tiffany Weihgold, 46, who lives in the Frankfurt area.
"The squeaky wheel gets the oil," she said.
"Try everything"
Not everyone agreed that scrapping prioritisation was a bad thing, however, and others found the negative presentation of "queue jumping" youngsters or "shot snatchers" to be unfair.
"In a pandemic, there is no one who doesn't need a vaccine," argued Jessica, 39, from Berlin. "Negative portrayals of people who understand the importance of getting vaccinated and who refuse to be kept waiting indefinitely only fuel conspiracy theorists who don't think we need vaccines."
READ ALSO: EXPLAINED - How can people in Germany get a Covid vaccine appointment?
Across all corners of Germany, the advice for securing that all-important jab was clear: ask around, and don't give up.
"Try everything," advised Gary Scott, 52, in Berlin. "Register with your doctor, join the Telegram and Twitter groups, sign up for the website sofort-impfen.de and call the vaccination hotline every day."
"Just try at a variety of places, and consider travelling if necessary," said Jen M. from Ladenburg, a town in Baden-Württemberg. "My partner managed to eventually get an appointment two hours away!"
For Eduardo Camaratta, 36, in Berlin, meanwhile, the answer lies in the humble 'enter' key.
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