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The campaign to beat the coronavirus is accelerating, and Britain began dispensing the second vaccine into its arsenal on Monday. But authorities in France and other parts of Europe are coming under fire for delays and delays.
In the United States, meanwhile, government officials reported that vaccinations have remarkably accelerated after a slow start. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert, said over the weekend that 1.5 million injections were administered in 72 hours, bringing the total for the past three weeks to about 4 million.
Britain on Monday became the first nation to start using the COVID-19 vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford, ramping up its inoculation campaign nationwide amid rising infection rates attributed to a seemingly new most contagious variant of the virus.
Brian Pinker, an 82-year-old dialysis patient, received his first injection at Oxford University Hospital and said in a statement: “I can now look forward to celebrating my 48th wedding anniversary.”
Britain’s vaccination program began on December 8 with the injection developed by Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech.
The country has registered more than 50,000 new coronavirus infections a day during the last six days and deaths have exceeded 75,000, one of the worst figures in Europe.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced a wave of near closures the weekend before Christmas, warning on Monday that “tough, tough” weeks are ahead and tighter restrictions are coming soon: “If you look at the numbers, there’s no question that we will have to take tougher measures. “
Those measures could include more school closings, curfews and a total ban on mixing people from different households.
In other places, vaccination efforts have been slow to get off the ground. France’s cautious approach appears to have backfired, leaving only a few hundred people vaccinated after the first week and rekindling anger over the government’s handling of the pandemic.
The slow launch was attributed to poor management, staff shortages during the holidays, and a complex consent policy designed to accommodate vaccine skepticism among the French.
“It is a state scandal,” Jean Rottner, president of the Grand-Est region of eastern France, said on France-2 television. “Getting vaccinated is increasingly difficult than buying a car.”
Health Minister Olivier Veran promised that by the end of Monday, “several thousand” people will have been vaccinated, and the pace will accelerate during the week. But that would leave France far behind its neighbors.
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The French media broadcast charts comparing vaccine figures in various countries: In France, a nation of 67 million people, only 516 people were vaccinated in the first six days, according to the French Ministry of Health. Germany’s first week total topped 200,000 and Italy’s topped 100,000. Millions of people have been vaccinated in the United States and China.
The Dutch government has also faced criticism for its delay in delivering vaccines. His Health Ministry said it is pushing the start of the campaign by two days, until Wednesday.
Meanwhile, the European Union defended its strategy amid mounting criticism over the slow roll out of COVID-19 shots in the 27-nation bloc of 450 million people.
EU Commission spokesman Eric Mamer said the main problem “is a production capacity problem, a problem that everyone faces.”
The EU has sealed six vaccine contracts with a variety of manufacturers. But only the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine has been approved for use so far across the EU. EU drug regulators are expected to decide on Wednesday whether to recommend authorization of the Moderna vaccine.
Some aspects of Britain’s vaccination plans have also sparked controversy.
The two vaccines you are using require two injections and Pfizer has recommended that the second dose be given within 21 days. But UK health authorities want to give the first dose to as many people as possible immediately, rather than keeping the vaccine in reserve to ensure recipients get their second injection on time. The plan calls for extending the time between doses up to 12 weeks.
While two doses are required to fully protect against COVID-19, one dose offers a high level of protection.
Stephen Evans, professor of pharmacoepidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said lawmakers are forced to balance potential risks and benefits amid the disaster.
“We have a crisis situation in the UK with a new variant that is spreading rapidly and, as has become clear to everyone during 2020, delays cost lives,” Evans said. “When resources for doses and people to vaccinate are limited, then vaccinating more people with potentially less efficacy is demonstrably better than more comprehensive efficacy by just half.”
In the United States, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Alex Azar, dismissed such a strategy, saying on ABC’s “Good Morning America” that the scientific data “simply does not exist” to support such an approach.
The launch in the US has been marked by a multitude of logistical hurdles, a patchwork of approaches by state and local governments, and confusion. Some people are not sure where or when to get an injection.
Fauci acknowledged over the weekend that “we are not where we want to be,” but expressed optimism that momentum will pick up in mid-January. He said President-elect Joe Biden’s goal of vaccinating 100 million people in his first 100 days in office is “realistic.”
On Sunday, India, the second most populous country in the world, authorized its first two COVID-19 vaccines, the Oxford-AstraZeneca and another developed by an Indian company. The move paves the way for a huge vaccination program in the desperately poor nation of 1.4 billion people.
India has confirmed more than 10.3 million cases of the virus, the second in the world behind the United States. It has also reported some 150,000 deaths.
None of the approved vaccines require the ultra-cold storage facilities that others require. Instead, they can be kept in refrigerators, making them more feasible for the country.
Associated Press journalists from around the world contributed to this report.
