BERLIN (AP) – Slowing down the blocs in the citizens’ immunization race against COVID-19, Germany is facing an unknown problem: an excess of vaccines and insufficient arms to inject them.
Like other European Union countries, its national vaccination campaign lags far behind that of Israel, the United Kingdom and the United States. There are now growing calls in this country, of 83 million, to drop the rules or at least to rewrite it a little.
The Germans watched with morbid fascination in January as Britain prepared an army of volunteers to fire coronavirus, then marveled that Britain – hit much harder by the pandemic than Germany – had managed to vaccinate more than half a million people. people in a few days.
US inoculation centers and COVID-19 outbreaks in U.S. food pharmacies have caused confusion in Germany – that is, until the country’s own plans for orderly vaccination schedules at specialty centers have been overwhelmed by demand.
Britain and the United States “have taken a much more pragmatic approach” to vaccination, said Hans-Martin von Gaudecker, a professor of economics at the University of Bonn. “What the solid and reliable German bureaucracy normally does becomes an obstacle in a crisis and costs lives.”
The European Medicines Agency has approved the AstraZeneca vaccine for all age groups, but several EU countries, including Germany, have imposed stricter age limits.
Due to the stockpile of AstraZeneca vaccine doses at 2 million, Germany is trying to make more people eligible for vaccines that have so far been limited to a fraction of the population: people in the highest priority group who are under 65 years old.
France changed tactics earlier this week, allowing people over the age of 65 to receive the AstraZeneca vaccine after initially restricting its use to younger people. Health Minister Olivier Veran said the shot would soon be available to people over 50 with health problems that make them more vulnerable.
France, which has more than 87,000 deaths, has among the highest taxes for coronavirus in Europe, used only 25% of the 1.6 million AstraZeneca vaccines received on Tuesday.
The age restrictions of European nations on AstraZeneca have aggravated the problems caused by the initial delays in delivery and some public reluctance to the vaccine.
However, data from this week’s mass vaccination program in England showed that both the AstraZeneca vaccine and the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine were about 60% effective in preventing symptomatic COVID-19 in people over 70 years of age. years, after only one dose. The analysis published by Public Health England, which has not yet been evaluated by colleagues, also showed that both vaccines were about 80% effective in preventing hospitalizations among people over 80 years of age.
Belgium and Italy are also easing age restrictions for the AstraZeneca vaccine, as they struggle to cope with an approaching third increase in COVID-19 cases caused by more contagious virus variants.
In Italy, the new government of Prime Minister Mario Draghi this week fired the emergency country COVID-19 and put an army general with expertise in logistics and experience in Afghanistan and Kosovo responsible for the country’s vaccination program.
Meanwhile, Denmark stands out as a success story in EU vaccination. The Scandinavian nation leads the bloc’s vaccination tables with little Malta and expects to vaccinate all adults by July – well ahead of the EU’s target of 70% of adults vaccinated by September.
Instead of withholding doses for the second necessary blow, the Danish health authorities have followed the British model of using all available vaccines as they enter – an approach that several EU countries are now considering.
And all 6 million people in Denmark have digital medical records linked to a single identification number, allowing authorities to identify exactly who is eligible for vaccination and contact them directly. The British authorities also send text messages directly to people to set up photos.
“There are historical reasons why we do not have a centralized register like in Denmark,” von Gaudecker said, citing Germany’s grim history of state oppression under Nazism and communism.
“Of course, a state can do terrible things with data,” he said. “But it can also do great things with data.”
Better targeting of available doses to those who need them is one way in which European countries hope to stay ahead of the virus in the coming months, as more contagious variants spread.
France and Spain intend to administer only one shot of the two-dose vaccines to people who have recovered from COVID-19, arguing that recent infections act as a partial protection against the virus.
Italy, France and the Czech Republic give priority to vaccinations in outbreaks. Hungarian leader receives a Chinese COVID-19 blow over the weekend and his country and Slovakia buy Sputnik V from Russia to supplement other vaccines delivered by the EU. The Polish president suggested that his country could follow Hungary’s initiative on Chinese vaccination.
The number of vaccines available across the EU could rise further next week if the European Medicines Agency follows the US example in approving Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose vaccine. President Joe Biden says the United States now expects to receive enough coronavirus vaccine for all adults by the end of May. – Two months earlier than expected.
“If we can’t vaccinate the little we have, then obviously we will have an even bigger problem when we get a lot of vaccines,” said Baerbel Bas, a member of parliament for the center-left Germany’s Social Democratic Party.
The German Minister of Health said that more than 5% of the population now received a first dose.
“But it’s clear we need more tempo,” Jens Spahn said, adding that vaccine centers will be given more flexibility to decide who to give them to.
Ursula Nonnemacher, the highest medical official in the German state of Brandenburg, which surrounds Berlin, has vowed not to leave any precious dose of vaccine while announcing the start of vaccinations on Wednesday in doctors’ offices.
“Now we’re going to overdrive,” she said.
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Raf Casert in Brussels, Jan M. Olsen in Copenhagen, Aritz Parra in Madrid, Angela Charlton in Paris, Frances D’Emilio in Rome and Monika Sciclowska in Warsaw contributed to this report.
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