Berlin, Jul 23 (IANS): Together with major retail companies such as the Rewe Group and Aldi, the German Retail Federation (HDE) appealed to the public to get vaccinated against Covid-19 in a statement published on Thursday.

"Only with an effective and rapid vaccination campaign can we push back the pandemic in the long term and permanently regain more normality, also for shopping," said HDE CEO Stefan Genth.

Recently, the pace of Covid-19 vaccination in Germany has been decreasing. In the last calendar week, nearly 4.1 million vaccination doses were administered in the country, 9.3 per cent fewer than in the previous week, according to the Robert Koch Institute (RKI).

More than 39.3 million people in Germany had been fully vaccinated as of Tuesday, bringing the country's vaccination rate to 47.3 per cent, RKI data showed. Almost 50.1 million people had at least one vaccine dose, the Xinhua news agency reported.

"If we do not want to recklessly jeopardize what we have so painstakingly achieved, we must continue to be prudent and act responsibly," HDE and the retailers said in the statement. "Then shopping will be safe even in times of pandemic."

To date, more than 3.75 million Covid-19 infections and 91,458 deaths have been registered in Germany since the outbreak of the pandemic, according to the RKI.