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Mass vaccination is also ongoing in the United States after the United Kingdom. And Europe? For German Health Minister Jens Spahn, the EU is taking too long. Germany, which as of tomorrow will be forced to a new very hard blockade due to the increase in the epidemic curve, urges the EMA, the pharmaceutical agency, to approve a candidate vaccine against Covid-19 in a very short time. Spahn points out that Germany is ready: more than 400 vaccination centers and more than 10,000 doctors capable of being operational as of today but blocked due to the lack of approval of the vaccine. For Spahn, the EMA should meet before December 29 and approve the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine “as soon as possible” also for a question of “the confidence of citizens in the capacity of action of the European Union.” The executive director of the European Medicines Agency, Emer Cooke, defends herself by ensuring that with her team she works “day and night for the license of the first vaccine against Covid-19″ and that if it is possible to speed up the times it will close earlier but there will be ” a thorough evaluation of the benefits and risks of the vaccine, to be sure that it is safe, effective and of high quality. “
Therefore, Europe is more cautious even if the Pfizer vaccine has already been distributed in the US, UK and even Canada. And after those of the two elderly Englishmen Maggie and Shakespeare in GB yesterday, the images of the young Sandra Lindsay, chief nurse of the intensive care unit at the Long Island Jewish Medical Center in New York, went around the world. Lindsay is the first person to have received the Covid vaccine from Pfizer-BioNTech. The governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, reiterated that this injection marks the beginning of a mass vaccination campaign throughout the country in which the epidemic is rampaging, with a daily toll of around 2,500 deaths and more than 16 million cases registered. . And just yesterday Mayor Bill De Blasio alerted New Yorkers to prepare and the possibility of a shutdown, a full shutdown for the months of December and January.
In Europe, the concern is twofold: both that it starts late compared to many other countries and that the doses required are insufficient. Pfizer has opted for 300 million doses, the only one that has currently received a green light from the (US Food and Drug Administration). And Big Pharma is in talks to supply the United States with another 100 million doses. This was announced by Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla.
On January 4 or 6, both France and Spain should start mass vaccination, if the green light from the EMA has arrived. But for Italy, as Commissioner Domenico Arcuri has already announced, it will be a symbolic date because the plan will only start in mid-January. In short, Europe lags behind the US, UK and Canada, and Italy is also lagging behind the EU. And in the 40 million doses reserved in Astrazeneca there is the limit of effectiveness only for those under 55 years of age.
