The Germans got a bit sheepish in their newest strategy to inspire people to get vaccinated.
Quite literally, actually—individuals from the country recently used live sheep and goats to help promote the COVID-19 vaccine.
The Washington Post reports that roughly 700 sheep and goats organized themselves into the shape of a syringe in a field outside of Hamburg, the resulting photograph of which is being used to promote vaccinations within the German population.
Hanspeter Etzold—the organizer behind organizing the sheep and leader of a company that uses sheep in team building exercises—believes that sheep are a great way to tell people to get vaccinated as opposed to the typical run-of-the mill PSA.
“Sheep are likable animals—maybe they can get the message over better,” states he.
Germany has recently picked up its vaccination marketing as a whole, making it a number one priority in an attempt to get infection rates down. As such, advertising vaccines to people appear to be getting more creative, hence the animals.
But how did the humans running the show manage to pull off getting hundreds of sheep and goats to form the shape of a syringe?
Easy—after a few days of practice, shepherd Wiebke Schmidt-Kochan explains it was just a matter of laying out pieces of bread for the animals to gravitate towards, then eat. The result was a sheep-goat syringe outline that measured about 330 feet long.
Whether or not the German people—or anyone, really—will feel motivated by this campaign to actually get the vaccine remains to be seen.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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