What's happening?
While just a month or so ago, people were scrabbling to get a Covid shot, it appears that Germany's vaccination drive has entered a new phase: the roll-out of jabs is running smoothly, but demand for the jabs appears to be tapering off.
In Bavaria, one vaccination centre recently secured 1,800 AstraZeneca shots and managed to deliver just 180 of these into residents' arms. Meanwhile, Berlin's pop-up clinics - initially intended for local residents - have been expanding to cover the entire city in order to use up the available doses.
According to a recent report in Taggespiegel, the drive is now progressing so rapidly that the federal government has revised its vaccination targets once again.
While Health Minister Jens Spahn has originally promised that everyone who wanted an appointment could get one by the end of the summer, ministers now believe that this goal can be achieved by the end of July.
There have also been reports of a large number of missed vaccine appointments across Germany, with several large vaccination centres revealing that around six percent of their appointments are currently no-shows.
This has led to a debate about whether people who don't turn up for their Covid jab should face fines, since missed appointments can often result in wasted doses.
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Does that mean nobody wants a vaccine anymore?
Not necessarily, but it could be that everyone who initially wanted a vaccine appointment has managed to book it already and has either had the first dose of the vaccine, or is set to get it over the next few weeks.
Over the past few months, Germany's vaccine roll-out has been turbocharged as local doctors' surgeries and mobile vaccine clinics were enlisted to help carry out the vaccination drive alongside the larger vaccination centres.
Meanwhile, the supply issues that plagued Germany's immunisation drive at the start appear to have been ironed out, with the country managing to secure 50 million doses of Pfizer/BioNTech alone in the first seven months of the year.
On May 30th - just a week before the Health Ministry opted to lift the prioritisation of vaccine appointments nationwide - Health Minister Jens Spahn said he expected that 90 percent of everyone who wanted a vaccine would be able to get one by mid-July.
This was partly to do with the fact that the government had managed to find reliable suppliers for the vaccines, he said.
READ ALSO: German Health Minister predicts 90 percent of people who want vaccine will have one by mid-July
At present, just under 60 percent of people in Germany have had at least one jab, while around 41.5 percent are considered fully vaccinated.
According to recent reports, physicians will be able to administer a further 17-18 million first doses of mRNA vaccines (Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna) by the end of July - equating to around 22 percent of the population.
Germany has received a large number of Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine doses in recent months. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Fabian Sommer This essentially means that, by the end of July, around 78 percent of the German population would have had an opportunity to be at least partially inoculated against Covid.
That figure could potentially match - or exceed - the number of people who want a vaccine in the first place.
How many people want to get vaccinated in Germany?
Back in May, Spahn estimated that the proportion of the population who wanted to get vaccinated was around 70-75 percent, but added that this would be a "very good" outcome in the inoculation drive.
A recent poll by Covimo - who have been monitoring Germany's vaccine coverage - paints a similar picture.
Of a random sample of around 1,000 people, 66.8 percent said they would definitely get vaccinated, while a further 13.2 percent said they probably would - suggesting that around 80 percent of the German population tend to see Covid vaccination positively.
Around four percent, meanwhile, said they definitely wouldn't get vaccinated, while a further four percent probably wouldn't. Twelve percent said they were still on the fence.
It's also worth noting that, as of 2019, there were around 13 million under-18s in Germany, equating to around 16 percent of the population. Since there's no official recommendation for under-18s to be immunised, and children are generally considered to be less affected by severe courses of Covid, we would expect this proportion of the population to have a much lower vaccination coverage than the adults.
So, is supply outstripping demand?
In some parts of the country, yes - but according to health experts, this is simply because the demand has been more than met.
According to the Robert Koch Institute, the willingness to get vaccinated against Covid remains "at a high level".
In short, it seems that the inoculation drive has now entered a new phase in which the infrastructure and vaccine doses are there, but the demand is slowing simply because so many people have already been catered for.
What about all those missed vaccine appointments?
There are numerous potential reasons for this, all of which have probably come into play over the past few weeks.
The first is, once again, that people may have managed to secure an appointment elsewhere - perhaps for their preferred type of vaccine - and didn't end up needing the other one they'd booked.
This is certainly the case in Bavaria, where the state Health Ministry has reported that a number of appointment invitations have been sent out via the state vaccine registration portal, even though the addressee has already received a vaccination with their local GP.
The second could be related to the time of year, when schools break up for summer and many people decide to go on holiday - meaning they're unable to come to their second vaccine appointment.
With Covid infections falling dramatically over the past few months, and public life reopening, people may also feel that getting vaccinated is much less urgent at present.
However, the Robert Koch Institute believes that people who have had the first appointment are very unlikely to turn down the second one outright. In a survey published by the public health authority, 98.7 percent of those surveyed who had previously been vaccinated stated that they "definitely" or "very likely" want to be vaccinated a second time.
"So there is no apparent tendency that the recommended vaccination schedule is not completed," the RKI explained.
READ ALSO: EXPLAINED: What to do if your second Covid jab in Germany clashes with your holiday
Finally, a certain proportion of missed appointments - as many doctors know - tends to be a fact of life, and could also be down to basic human error, such as forgetfulness or poor organisation.
What's the government doing to help?
Alongside the discussion around fines, the Federal Health Ministry is now moving into a new phase of its vaccination drive where it will attempt to target groups that have so far been less likely to receive a jab.
In addition, some states are launching their own campaigns to address vaccine hesitancy, by presenting inoculation as the gateway to freedom, holidays and fun.
READ ALSO: Car parks, job centres and festivals: How Germany is trying to get a Covid jab to everyone
In Bavaria, for example, the "Ich tu's für..." (I'm doing it for...) campaign gives numerous reasons why people could get vaccinated.
"I'm doing it for the pop homies," says rapper Ashley, one of the campaign's ambassadors.
"If everyone joins in, we can reach herd immunity more quickly and get the pandemic under control," the campaign website states.
"We can finally go out to eat again, meet friends, visit grandparents, travel, see live concerts – just live a normal life again. That’s why it’s time to pull together and get vaccinated."
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