Germans will be “vaccinated, cured or dead” by the end of this winter, Health Minister Jens Spahn said Monday, as he rushed out extra doses of the coronavirus jab from BioNTech and Pfizer to inject into the arms of the one-third of people in the country who are still not vaccinated, writes POLITICO.

“Probably by the end of this winter pretty much everyone in Germany - as has sometimes been cynically put - will be vaccinated, cured or dead”, - Spahn told a hastily arranged press conference, in his starkest warning to date of the risks of holding out against vaccination.

“But this really is the case: With the very contagious Delta variant, it is very, very likely ... that anyone who is not vaccinated will over the next few months become infected and lack protection.

In this respect, immunity is always achieved, the question is only whether it is through vaccination or infection. And we clearly recommend vaccination”.

Spahn angered doctors last week by rationing scarce supplies of the vaccine devised by Mainz-based startup BioNTech, which is in favor thanks to its “Made in Germany” status, while saying no limits would apply to the distribution of doses from U.S. biotech company Moderna.

In an abrupt U-turn, he announced Monday that he was rushing out an extra six million doses of the BioNTech shot, while giving assurances that Moderna was also “a good, safe and very effective vaccine”.

“Many doctors say that BioNTech is the Mercedes among vaccines and Moderna is the Rolls Royce”, - said Spahn.