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In Austria, it is unlikely to meet its vaccination plan commitments after the Swedish-British pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca announced that it would not be able to deliver the promised vaccine in the first quarter.
This is completely unacceptable. The amounts set out in the contract must be met, the Vienna Health Ministry said in a statement.
The head of the ministry, Rudolf Anschober, assured him that Austria would fight for every promised dose of vaccine and that the first phase of the vaccination plan, the immunization of the elderly and health workers, was not in jeopardy. With 1.2 million vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech, they can make sure of that.
In all nursing homes in two provinces, Styria and Carinthia, there are residents and workers they have already received the first vaccination against the coronavirus, but the first round of vaccination will soon also take place in the other provinces. The participation rate for the elderly is 70 to 80 percent, while about 60 percent of medical personnel have been vaccinated.
Despite all the transportation difficulties, vaccination of the most vulnerable is progressing. Older people are a priority, we follow it and we do not let ourselves be discouraged, according to the Austrian press quotes Chancellor Sebastian Kurz.
Thomas Szekeres, president of the Medical Chamber, harshly criticized the European Union’s vaccine procurement practices on public service television ORF2 on Sunday. As he said, the EU should have ordered many more vaccines to start with, as Israel did. He mentioned that if it is confirmed during the authorization that the AstraZeneca vaccine is not suitable for all ages, this could disrupt the vaccination plan, because then, contrary to the plan, the youngest would have to be vaccinated first. In his opinion, it would be important to vaccinate all GPs as well, but unfortunately it all depends on the amounts received.
The European Medicines Agency (EMA) announced on January 12 that it had received an application for authorization for a vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford. The EMA then announced that a decision would be made on January 29.
Meanwhile, Austria’s Interior Minister Karl Nehammer has vowed to crack down on protesters who fail to comply with disease control measures on public service radio Ö1. He mentioned, among other things, that in the future a fine of up to € 500 could be imposed on protesters who do not wear a mask or do not comply with the mandatory protection distance, which is already two meters in Austria. The minister also raised the issue of limiting the number of protests.
The spread of the British virus mutation is also of serious concern in Austria. Seven more cases were identified in Tyrol and a total of 539 suspected cases of the more aggressive British variant were investigated in Vienna, 66 of which tested positive, representing 12% of all positive tests in the last week.
In Austria, 1202 people have recently been diagnosed with the virus in the last 24 hours and 404,714 cases have been recorded since the outbreak began. The number of hospital patients with coronavirus disease is 1,817 and the number of people who need intensive care is 320. Of the complications of the disease caused by the infection, 29 died last day, bringing the death toll to 7,418.
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