RIBECOURT-LA-TOUR, France (Reuters) – Renaud Georges has been a few days since receiving his coronavirus vaccine, an injection he hopes will allow him to hug his grandchildren for the first time in months. He then received a text message informing him that the appointment had been canceled.
“It’s a massive disappointment,” he said. “For us, the vaccine is the only way out of this miserable crisis.”
The retired professor said that due to the lack of vaccine doses, the next available space was March 10. His wife, Annie, who has been afraid for two months since she turned 75 and is healthy, is not seen as a priority, she does not know when she will inoculate you.
“We miss not being able to hug our children, to hold them in our arms. That’s all for us, “said Georges.
Europe is facing a vaccine shortage as Pfizer and Moderna have temporarily slowed supply, while AstraZeneca has said it will reduce volumes allocated to the European Union in the first quarter due to production problems.
The lack has led the northern Hauts-de-France region inhabited by Georges, the largest part of Paris, and at least one other region, which together make up a third of France’s population, to delay the first doses.
General practitioner Anthony Haro said he was forced to temporarily close the nearby Saint-Amand-les-Eaux vaccine center, which had been in operation for nine days after the local hospital supplying the vaccine said its stocks were depleted.
“We made promises to our patients and those promises brought comfort,” he said. “We have very fragile patients right now, like those on chemotherapy, who we can’t vaccinate because the doses are reserved for second-round inoculations.”
“NO REGULATIONS”
France has not regretted Europe’s vaccine procurement process, said European Affairs Minister Clement Beaune.
“The idea that France or Germany could receive the vaccine, but not its neighbor, does not make sense,” the minister said.
Local officials blame the government for the chaotic implementation of the vaccine. They say he panicked after the campaign started slowly and made the vaccine available to too many too quickly.
The Minister of Health, Olivier Veran, declared that there were no cancellations, only the postponement of the appointments and blamed the smaller supplies than expected from the pharmaceutical companies. He also said that the increased number of vaccination centers has led to more meetings than doses in some places.
In mid-January, Paris’ 17th arrondissement mayor Geoffroy Boulard rushed to find doctors, nurses and administrative staff to run a third vaccination center in his district that could deliver at least 1,200 COVID shots a day. .
Three days before the center opened, city officials informed Boulard that there were not enough doses of Pfizer vaccine. “Looks like we’re taken for idiots,” he said.
The purchase of vaccines was too opaque and the consequences were felt throughout France. The government of President Emmanuel Macron has ignored past lessons, he said.
“Advance planning is not a French quality. I saw her with masks, test kits and we see her again with doses of vaccine “, he complained. “What was Plan B?”
Reporting by Pascal Rossignol in Ribecourt-la-Tour and Caroline Pailliez in Paris; Additional reporting by Elizabeth Pineau; Written by Richard Lough; Edited by Janet Lawrence