Germany may have to junk 3 million COVID shots by late June

BERLIN (AP) — Germany’s health ministry says the country may have to discard 3 million doses of expired COVID-19 vaccine by the end of June. A ministry spokesman told reporters in Berlin that “not many doses” have been destroyed so far, though he couldn’t give an exact figure. But he said that “we have more vaccine available at the moment than is being used and than we can donate.” He added that the U.N.-backed effort to distribute shots to poorer countries, COVAX, isn’t currently accepting donations. Germany’s vaccination program has slowed considerably, with an average of only 33,000 shots administered per day over the past week — compared with over 1 million at times in December.