> So Merkel is not "opting" for anything personally, just following the recommendation...

While this is true, it looks entirely different when looking into the whole context of the vaccination campaign. I am a student in Germany and like many others currently enrolled in universities or for those still in school, politics didn't seem to care at all about us. The official STIKO recommendation nowadays (after they changed it twice) is that it should only be given to people older than 60 (or after consultation with ones general practitioner and if he agrees; in my experience, most don't for young patients).

After young people got (imho rightfully) outraged by a variety of factors, Minister of Health Jens Spahn suggested that young people who did not have the possibility to get an mRNA shot at the time, should get vaccinated with the AstraZeneca vaccine on their own risk and against the official STIKO recommendation.

So taking into account that government officials recommended millions of young people to get the vaccine at their own risk, Merkel (and others!) just "following STIKO guidelines" seems like a weak justification.

Many consider the changes in vaccine recommendation by the STIKO (german panel for vaccine recommendation) as a bad thing. Personally, I like that they are changing their opinion based on new data - what else should they do? Are you suggesting Merkel should have taken a second dose of AstraZeneca?

I'm not saying that the change of direction by the STIKO is a bad thing - new data leads to new conclusions and that they're openly admitting that with a change in their recommendation is very good.

Nonetheless, the whole communication during the vaccination campaign, especially regarding the AZ vaccine and the change in direction, went really bad and to me, its no surprise that the acceptance of the AZ vaccine went downhill

So they should have hidden the lack of testing in older population and furthermore hidden any potentially fatal complications?

I would have understood that outrage a few weeks ago, but at the moment it looks like the times of vaccine scarcity are over (in Germany and probably most other EU countries at least), so anyone willing to get vaccinated will be able to get the vaccine of their choice.

But yeah, I can sympathize - I'm over 40, but still in the lowest vaccination priority group, and was also left wondering when my turn to get a vaccine would finally come, while the press was hyping "vaccine scarcity" - my turn came faster than I had expected BTW. Now, in only a few weeks, they have gone from that to hand-wringing about "vaccine skepticism" and what can be done to get more people vaccinated.