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The world will be attentive to the United Kingdom, which this week is preparing to be the first country in Western Europe to start the process of vaccinating the population against covid-19. A combination of factors is generating concern about the approach of a “perfect storm” that brings together “Brexit”, the pressure of the flu and security risks.
The first doses of the vaccine, which received authorization for urgent use last week, are destined from Tuesday to health professionals involved in the treatment of patients with COVID-19, home workers and people over 80 years of age. years.
The preparations for the distribution of the vaccine developed by the pharmaceutical companies Pfizer and BioNTech, which were also acquired by the Portuguese state, involve very strict security, unprecedented logistics and a strong response from the NHS, the British national health service. And yet there are many aspects that threaten the success of the company.
In June 2016, when the British voted overwhelmingly in favor of leaving the European Union, there were many warnings from opponents of “Brexit” about what a British withdrawal from the European bloc would mean. But it’s fair to say that no one predicted a pandemic would occur at that time.
With the stagnation between London and Brussels that continues, the probability of not having an economic and political association agreement between the two blocs as of 2021 increases. In this scenario, the rules of the World Trade Organization come into force and many fear the effects that the return of border controls may have on transport. This reality would be challenging in normal times, but coupled with a huge effort to distribute vaccines it can be a colossal task.
“There will be delays at the borders and it will be some time before the EU and UK get used to trading with the new system, and the imported equipment needed to fight the pandemic may be picked up on that,” he said. to guardian Center for European Reform researcher Sam Lowe.
The authorities are confident that the outcome of the negotiations between the EU and the United Kingdom will have no impact on the distribution of the vaccine from the end of the year. “We train, we are prepared, we are fully prepared for any outcome,” June Raine, president of MHRA, the drug regulatory agency, told the BBC.
Aircraft vaccines
One of the alternatives studied by the British Government is the use of military air transport to deliver millions of doses of vaccines from Pfizer’s Belgian factory to the United Kingdom, in order to avoid possible problems at the land border.
The decision, says the newspaper The Guardian, shows that the Government is prepared for there to be interruptions in the flow in commercial ports and airports as of December 31, whether or not there is an agreement with the European Union.
Last week, the British Army carried out a kind of general test to test the ability to transport the vaccines to one of the centers prepared to receive them, which it called “Operation Panacea.” Several scenarios have been tested, including situations of adverse reactions of patients to the vaccine, says the newspaper Sun.
The test took place at the Ashton Gate Stadium in Bristol, which will be one of the seven main regional centers where thousands of people will be vaccinated daily in the coming months.
All planning may be insufficient in a scenario of great pressure on the NHS which, according to the guardianEven before the pandemic, he said he needed 100,000 professionals. Experts fear the effects of a resurgence in the number of infections in January, after the holiday period.
“Clearly, the perfect storm would be a combination of a third wave in late January, perhaps due to the less severe rules around Christmas, a flu wave, and the huge backlog of treatments that were postponed in the first phase. And I still have to do the vaccine at the same time, ”he tells Observer the executive director of NHS Providers (a body that bridges the gap between government and health facilities), Chris Hopson.
Demonstrating that the unforeseen will be more than many, one of the initial plans of the vaccination program – the priority given to users and home workers – has already had to undergo adjustments, according to the The country. The problem is related to the size of the storage containers at minus 70 degrees, which have a capacity of up to 975 units, but whose transport to homes with a few dozen people can end up leaving several doses unusable. The Government of Wales has already assumed that it will not be able to distribute vaccines in homes at this stage.
A latent problem, but one that also undermines the entire vaccination effort, is the high number of Britons who show resistance to vaccination. In a survey of the Observer, 35% of those surveyed said they were unlikely to get vaccinated.
