BERLIN – Elderly Europeans and their care workers rolled up their sleeves on Sunday to get coronavirus vaccine shots in a campaign to save more than 5050 million people in the European Union, from nursing homes in France to hospitals in Poland.
Inoculations were rarely relieved as the continent struggled in its most precarious moments since the coronavirus epidemic began.
Despite national lockdowns, restrictions on movement, shuttering of restaurants and cancellation of Christmas gatherings, the virus has pushed Europe into the darker winter months. The spread of a more contagious virus in Britain has created an atmosphere of fear that much of continental Europe would rush to close its borders to travelers from the country, effectively drowning the whole nation in different parts.
In Germany, a planned rollout of a vaccination campaign in the European Union on Sunday at a nursing home in the eastern state of Saskatchewan-Anhalt, a 101-year-old woman and dozens of other residents and staff members were inoculated on Saturday. Hours after the dose arrived. People were also vaccinated in Hungary and Slovakia on Saturday.
As early as Sunday, dozens of minivans carrying dry ice-filled coolers to keep doses of the Pfizer-Bioentech vaccine rising from minus 70 degrees Celsius in nursing homes in the German capital as part of a vaccination wave. The rollout comes as Europe’s largest nation faces the deadliest time since the outbreak.
Nearly 1,000 deaths were reported every day in Germany a week before Christmas, a cemetery in the state of East Saxony, running straight out of the holiday twenty-four hours a day.
“I’ve never seen this worse before,” said Evelyn Mરેller, director of the facility in the town of Gerlitz.
More than 350,000 people from 27 EU member states have died from Covid-19 since the first casualties were reported in France on February 15. And in many countries, the worst days have come in recent weeks. In Poland, November was the busiest month since the end of World War II.
While doctors have learned how to better care for Covid-19 patients, effective medical treatment remains kind. So the rapid development of vaccines not only as a significant scientific achievement, but also the hope of the world has closed its axis.
Still, the vaccine is fed up with the news of successful candidates in November as rollouts in Britain and the United States outline the challenges ahead.
Vaccination campaigns in Russia and China, meanwhile, are using products that remove similar regulatory barriers created by Pfizer-Bioentech and Moderna, with the vaccine currently being rolled out in the West.
On Friday, Mexico became the first country in Latin America to begin inoculation of its population. And regulators in India are expected to soon approve the use of vaccines developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University.
By the new year, the largest inoculation effort in human history is expected to be in full swing. But a shortage of supplies, logistical constraints, misinformation, public skepticism, and an intense scale of effort ensure that it will be an uphill battle against a constantly evolving virus.
While experts said there was no indication that any known type would give the vaccine to people less effectively, they said further study was needed. And the higher the rate of infection, the greater the urgency to vaccinate people.
With such ferocity in Britain, a new trend is emerging as to whether or not to give more and more people a single dose of the Pfizer-Bionettech vaccine – discussions are underway to give it a one percent increase in disease prevention. levels Two percent doses required for a level of protection.
Nevertheless, the rollout of the vaccine was celebrated all over Europe.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said, “Today, we are turning the page on a difficult year.” Wrote on Twitter. “The # COVID19 vaccine has been delivered to all EU countries.”
The Greeks call their vaccination campaign “Operation Freedom”. Like most of Europe, there are doubts about the coronavirus vaccine, and the slogan is intended to control uncertain people.
The first shot was taken by a 29-year-old nurse for Italians – whose grief was a warning to the world as soon as the epidemic began, and whose current death toll is among the worst in Europe.
“This is the beginning of the end,” said nurse Claudia Alvarnini, after her early morning inoculation at Splanza Hospital in Rome.
“We, the health workers, believe in science. We believe in this vaccine. Vaccination is necessary, for us, for those close to us, for our loved ones, for the community and for our patients,” he said.
Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte celebrated the moment.
“Today Italy is back. “It’s a vaccine,” he wrote on Twitter. “This date will stay with us forever.”
In some countries, the first vaccination offers the opportunity to release the type for failure during the first wave of the epidemic.
In the spring, the virus spread to nursing homes in France, and the death toll did not rise until the crisis remained in the shadows, which cannot be ignored. There was a symbolic resonance when nursing home residents were selected to receive the first inoculation in the country.
In Spain, where more than 16,000 people died in nursing homes in the first three months of the epidemic, an inoculation campaign was also launched in nursing homes in the city of Guadalajara.
EU member states, before launching the coordination of national campaigns, showed solidarity waiting for the European Medical Association, the bloc’s regulatory board, to approve the vaccine. But how it will play in individual countries is likely to be uneven.
All EU member states have a national health care system, so people will be vaccinated free of charge. But, as hospitals in poor member states such as Bulgaria and Romania are immersed in the latest wave of the virus, those countries will face challenges in delivering the vaccine to the network.
While each nation is deciding how to run its own campaign, the first phase will usually focus on people who are most at risk and who have potentially serious health conditions – health care workers and the elderly.
Most member states have said they expect the vaccine to reach the general public by spring, and a return to normalcy is unlikely to happen anytime soon.
October In October, France was among the first nations to introduce a second lockdown in Europe, and although it has begun lifting sanctions, the reopening has not come as quickly as hoped.
Museums, theaters and cinemas, which were initially expected to reopen on December 15, were closed and a curfew has been imposed across the country from 8pm to 6pm. In Paris, the lights of the Champs-3 laces still shine every night, but no holiday shoppers or tourists sit there for their glitter.
Stacked chairs in empty bars, restaurants and cafes are a reminder of the absence that marked 2020.
Nathalie and Adrian Delgado, a Parisian couple in their 50s, said they would get vaccinated soon. “It’s an act of citizenship,” Ms. Delgado said he celebrated Christmas in Paris with the couple’s two children instead of visiting his mother. “It’s not even for me, but this is the only way to stop the virus.”
Others were not so sure.
Sandra Frutuso, a 27-year-old housekeeper who also canceled plans to visit her family in Portugal, said she feared the disease – her husband became infected and then recovered – but “not long ago” The vaccine will not be given.
“They made it very quickly,” he said. “I’m concerned that the side effects could be worse than covid for someone my age.”
Germans ’desire for vaccinations has also waned in recent months, and the government hopes acceptance of the introduction of vaccines will increase.
Asked last week how long life could be before it could return to normal, Ugur Sahin, co-founder of Bioentech, warned that, even with immunity, the virus would persist for the rest of the decade.
“We need a new definition of ‘normal’,” he told reporters, adding that adequate vaccinations could lead to a lockdown early next year.
“This year we will not have an impact on the number of infections, but we have to make sure that next year we have enough vaccines so that it will be normal,” Mr Sahin said.
Melissa Eddie Report from Berlin, and Mark Santora From London. Contributed by the report Ure Relin Briden From Paris, Nikki Kitsantonis From London, Elizabeth Povoledo From Rome, Raphael Minder Madrid and Monica Pronkzuk From Brussels.
