The Latest: Germany’s health minister tours vaccine center

BERLIN -- Germany’s health minister toured a new vaccination center in Duesseldorf on Tuesday, preparing for possible mass vaccinations against the coronavirus in the coming weeks.

Vaccinations in Germany will be free, voluntary and people will receive letters about when it’s their turn for the shot, Health Minister Jens Spahn says.

The first shots will be given either in vaccination centers around the country or by mobile medical teams who will go to nursing homes to vaccinate the most vulnerable people. Later next year, doctors will vaccinate people at their local practices, the health minister says.

Spahn expects Germany to receive five to eight million doses of vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech as well as by Moderna.

There will be 53 centers opened in Germany’s most populous state of North Rhine-Westphalia, with 18 million people, where Duesseldorf is based. In Berlin, home to 3.6 million people, six centers are being prepared.

In Germany, there were 13,604 confirmed cases and 388 deaths in the last 24 hours.

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