PARIS (AP) – The first few hours needed to administer the first coronavirus vaccines 14 residents of the John XXIII nursing home – named after a pope and not far from his birthplace in eastern France, the pioneer of the Louis Pasteur vaccine – took weeks of training.
The director of the house, Samuel Robbe, first had to make his way through a dense 61-page vaccination protocol, one of several powerful guides from the French government detailing exactly how to proceed, to the number of times (10) each vaccine flask should be turned upside down to mix its contents.
“Delicate,” the brochure states. “Don’t shake.”
While France is trying to figure out why its vaccination campaign was launched so slowly, the answer lies in the bureaucracy and the decision to give priority to vulnerable elderly people in nursing homes. They are probably the most difficult starting group, due to the need for informed consent and the difficulties that explain the complex science of rapid vaccines.
Claude Fouet, still full of life and good mood at the age of 89, but with memory problems, was among the first in the care home in Paris to accept a vaccination. But in conversation, it quickly becomes apparent that his understanding of the pandemic is unusual. Eve Guillaume, the director of the house, had to remind Fouet that in April she survived her own brush with the virus that killed over 66,000 people in France.
“I was in the hospital,” Fouet slowly remembered, “with a dead person next to me.”
Guillaume says getting the consent of his 64 residents – or their guardians and families when they are not able to agree enough – is proving to be the most intense part of his preparations to start. vaccinations at the end of this month. Some families have said no, and others want to wait a few months to see how vaccinations work before deciding.
“You can’t count on nursing homes to go fast,” she says. “It means, every time, to start a conversation with the families, to talk to the tutors, to take collegial steps to reach the right decision. And that takes time. “
At the house of John XXIII, between the fortified city of Besancon and the birthplace of Pasteur of Dole, Robbe had a similar experience.
After using the European Union in the green light of the BioNTech-Pfizer vaccine In December, Robbe says it took two weeks to gather all the pieces to vaccinate 14 residents this week, just a fraction of his total of more than 100.
Obtaining consent was the biggest obstacle for a doctor and a psychologist who went from room to room to discuss vaccinations, he says. Residents’ families were given a week over the December holidays to approve or reject, a decision that was to be unanimous on the part of immediate family members.
When a woman’s daughter said yes, but her son said no, there was no blow because “they can turn against us and say, ‘I never agreed,'” Robbe explained. “Without consensus, we don’t get vaccinated.”
Only by cutting corners and functionally getting residents to agree could the process go faster, he says.
“My friends say, ‘What is this circus?’ The Germans have already vaccinated 80,000 people and we have not vaccinated anyone, “he said. “But we do not share the same stories. When you propose a vaccine to the Germans, everyone wants to be inoculated. In France, there is a lot of reluctance about the history of vaccinations. People are more skeptical. He needs to understand. They need explanations and to be calm. “
France has given priority to nursing homes, as they have seen almost a third of its deaths. But his first vaccination on December 27 of a 78-year-old woman In a long-term care unit, it quickly turned out to be just the symbolic launch of a launch that the government did not intend to undertake properly before this week.
Only on Monday, according to the schedule, the authorities launched an online platform in which health workers must register all vaccinations and show that those inoculated received a mandatory consultation with a doctor, adding to the bureaucracy.
In some countries moving faster than France, bureaucracy is weaker. In the UK, where nearly 1.5 million have been inoculated and plans are to strike all nursing home residents by the end of January, those able to give consent only need to sign a one-page form. which provides basic information about the benefits and possible side effects.
No interviews with doctors in Spain are required. Vaccination began the same day as France, but administered 82,000 doses in the first nine days, while France managed only a few thousand.
Germany, like France, also requires a meeting with a doctor and gives priority to shooting for caregivers, but reaches them faster, using mobile teams. At the current rate of almost 30,000 vaccinations a day, Germany would need at least six years to inoculate its 69 million adults. But while the German government faces criticism for the perceived slow launch, France has started even slower, at least in numerical terms, but has pledged to reach a million people by the end of January.
Other countries have accumulated a larger number by providing photos of wider cross-sections of people that are more easily accessible and can reach meetings. The vast majority of the more than 400,000 doses administered in Italy were for health workers.
Lucile Grillon, who runs three nursing homes in eastern France, says the many hours spent preparing vaccinations for 50 residents and staff who received jabs on Friday was a good time. He worked through the holidays to prepare.
“We can’t wait until we have the doses in the fridge to realize that we are not ready to vaccinate and then we have to throw away the doses and say, ‘Rats! Rats!’ I didn’t think of that, “she added. “The doses are too precious.”
“It takes us two months to prepare for the flu vaccines. Here, we were asked to set records, to vaccinate against COVID in less than 15 days “, she says. “I don’t see how we could have gone faster.”
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Associated Press writers Pan Pylas in London, Nicole Winfield in Rome, Ciaran Giles in Madrid and Kirsten Grieshaber in Berlin contributed.
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