Rivals Seize On Rare Misstep By Frontrunner For German PM

When the man leading Germany's Social Democrats into the elections this month, Olaf Scholz, last week again urged everyone to get vaccinated against the coronavirus, he made an offhand comment that has only now properly come to haunt him.

Photo Insert: SPD bet for German Chancellor and poll frontrunner Olaf Scholz talks to the media during a visit to France.

"Fifty million people have been vaccinated twice," he said to local radio in the state of North Rhine Westphalia on Friday.

"We are the guinea pigs [literally from the German: "test rabbits"] for those who have held off until now. So as one of those 50 million I say: it went well! Please join in."

It didn't take long for the rival center-right CDU party to seize on the remarks. The secretary general of the CDU, Paul Ziemiak, said hours later that the remarks would "reduce trust in the efficacy of the vaccine."

The CDU's candidate for chancellor, Armin Laschet, joined in this week, saying "we were not guinea pigs." Scholz's comment would fire up the anti-vaxxers, he warned.

And even the current chancellor, the woman Scholz is hoping to replace in the elections on September 26 and his current boss in his role as finance minister, piled in on Tuesday.

Speaking in what was probably the final debate in the Bundestag before the elections she said: "Naturally none of us were or are in any form guinea pigs when it came to the vaccinations."

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