Sheep and goats create shape of 100-metre syringe in campaign to urge Germans to get Covid jab

A 100-metre syringe was recreated by hundreds of sheep and goats in a bid to encourage animal-loving Covid-19 vaccine sceptics to flock to have the jab.

The animals, which belong to shepherd Steffen Schmidt and his wife, followed pieces of bread spread on the ground to form the syringe shape as they were filmed by a drone in a field near the northern German town of Schneverdingen.

Team-building coach Hanspeter Etzold partnered with Mr Schmidt to create the shape with 700 sheep and goats as part of an effort to get people jabbed.

Germany has lower vaccination rates than most other Western European nations. The percentage of the population that has received at least two shots stood on at 71.2% on Monday, although those who have received a booster shot has increased much faster in recent weeks and now stands at 38.9% of the population.

"Sheep are popular with people and carry positive emotional connotations. So perhaps they can reach many people emotionally when logic and scientific reasoning don't do the job," the organiser of the campaign, Hanspeter Etzold, told Reuters.

"I have noticed how enthusiastically the sheep are received and that it simply reaches people deep inside, which is perhaps not possible rationally, with rational arguments," he said.

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