WARSAW, Poland (PA) – European Union nations officially launched a coordinated effort Sunday to administer COVID-19 vaccinations to some of the world’s most vulnerable nearly 450 million people, marking a moment of hope in the continent’s fight against the worst public health crisis in a century.
Images were taken on Sunday morning to health workers, the elderly and prominent politicians to reassure the public that vaccinations are safe.
In Prague, Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis received the fire at dawn and said: “There is nothing to worry about.” In Rome, five doctors and nurses wearing white scrubs sat in a semicircle at the Spallanzani Infectious Diseases Hospital in Rome to receive their doses.
“Vaccination is an act of love and responsibility for the whole team,” said Claudia Alivernini, a 29-year-old nurse from Spallanzani, on the eve of the first shot in Italy, which has an effect on the virus in Europe. over 71,000 dead.
Italian Health Minister Roberto Speranza, speaking outside the hospital, said the coordinated launch of the EU was a sign of hope for the continent, but that people still could not leave their guard for a few more months.
“We still have difficult months ahead,” he said. “It’s a beautiful day, but we still have to be careful … this vaccine is the real way to end this difficult season.”
The vaccines, developed by BioNTech in Germany and the American doctor Pfizer, have started coming in super-cold containers to EU hospitals in a factory in Belgium. The EU has seen some of the world’s first and most affected virus hotspots, including Italy and Spain.
Other EU countries, such as the Czech Republic, have been spared the worst early on only to see their healthcare systems near collapse in the autumn.
In total, the 27 EU nations have recorded at least 16 million coronavirus infections and more than 336,000 deaths – a huge number that experts agree to underestimate the true number of the pandemic due to missed cases and limited tests. .
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen released a video celebrating the launch of the vaccine on Saturday, calling it “an emotional moment of unity”.
The campaign should alleviate the frustrations that are accumulating, especially in Germany, as the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States began inoculation programs with the same vaccine weeks earlier.
As it turned out, some vaccinations in the EU started a day earlier in Germany, Hungary and Slovakia. The operator of a German nursing home, where hundreds of people were vaccinated on Saturday, including a 101-year-old woman, said “every day we wait is too long.”
Each country decides for itself who will receive the first blows. Spain, France and Germany, among others, promise to put the elderly and residents in nursing homes first.
Poland also gives priority to doctors, nurses and others on the front lines of the virus. The Central European nation was largely exempt from the rise that hit Western Europe in the spring, but recorded large daily infections and deaths this fall.
EU leaders are relying on the launch of the vaccine to help the bloc project a sense of unity in a complex life-saving mission, after facing a year of difficulties in negotiating a post-Brexit trade deal with Britain.
“It’s here, the good news of Christmas,” said German Health Minister Jens Spahn. “This vaccine is the key to ending this pandemic … it is the key to recovering our lives.”
Politicians intending to receive antivirus vaccines on Sunday as a way to promote wider acceptance of vaccinations include Slovak President Zuzana Caputova and Bulgarian Health Minister Kostadin Angelov.
Meanwhile, the first cases of a new variant of the virus that has spread rapidly around London and southern England have now been detected in France and Spain. The new option, which the British authorities said is much easier to pass on, has led European countries, the United States and China to impose new travel restrictions on people in the UK.
The German pharmaceutical company BioNTech is confident that its coronavirus vaccine works against the new variant in the UK, but said that further studies are needed to be completely safe.
The European Medicines Agency will consider approving a second coronavirus vaccine on January 6 by Moderna, which has already been approved for use in the United States.
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