The campaign to beat the coronavirus is gaining momentum in some places, with Britain beginning to release the second vaccine in its arsenal on Monday. But authorities in France and elsewhere in Europe have come under fire for slow rollouts and delays.
In the US, government officials reported that vaccinations have sped up significantly after a slow start. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country’s top infectious disease expert, said over the weekend that 1.5 million injections were delivered in 72 hours, bringing the total over the past three weeks to about 4 million.
Britain became the first country to start using the COVID-19 vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University on Monday, stepping up its nationwide vaccination campaign amid rising infection rates attributed to a new and seemingly more infectious variant of the virus.
Brian Pinker, an 82-year-old dialysis patient, received the first injection at Oxford University Hospital and said in a statement, “I am really looking forward to celebrating my 48th wedding anniversary now.”
Britain’s vaccination program began on December 8 with the shot developed by Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech.
The country registered more than 50,000 new coronavirus infections per day in the past six days and the number of deaths has risen to over 75,000, one of the worst tolls in Europe.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced a wave of near-lockdowns the weekend before Christmas and warned Monday that “tough, tough” weeks lie ahead and tighter restrictions are coming soon: “If you look at the numbers, there’s no question about possible that we have to take tougher measures. “
Israel appears to be one of the world leaders in the vaccination campaign, vaccinating more than 1 million people, or about 12% of the population, in just over two weeks. The effort has been fueled by a high-quality, centralized health system and the country’s small size and concentrated population.
Elsewhere, France’s cautious approach seems to have backfired, leaving just a few hundred people vaccinated after the first week and reigniting anger over the way the government has handled the pandemic.
The slow rollout is due to mismanagement, staff shortages during the holidays and a complex consent policy designed to address vaccine skepticism among the French.
“It’s a state scandal,” said Jean Rottner, president of the Grand-Est region of eastern France, on France-2 television. “Vaccination is getting more and more complicated than buying a car.”
Health Minister Olivier Veran promised that “several thousand” people will have been vaccinated by the end of Monday, with the pace ramping up throughout the week. But that would still leave France far behind.
According to the French Ministry of Health, in France, a country of 67 million people, charts broadcast by the French media were vaccinated in the first six days. The total for the first week in Germany exceeded 200,000 and that of Italy more than 100,000. Millions of people have been vaccinated in the US and China.
The European Union has also faced increasing criticism over the slow rollout of COVID-19 recordings in the 27-country block of 450 million inhabitants.
European Commission spokesman Eric Mamer said the main problem is “a question of production capacity, a problem that everyone faces”.
The EU has signed six vaccine contracts with different manufacturers. But so far only the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine has been approved for use across the EU. EU drug regulators are expected to decide on Wednesday whether to recommend approving the Moderna vaccine.
Aspects of Britain’s vaccination plans have also sparked controversy.
UK health authorities want to give the first dose to as many people as possible right away, rather than keeping the vaccine in reserve to ensure recipients get their second injection on time a few weeks later. The plan requires stretching the time between doses for up to 12 weeks.
While two doses are required to fully protect against COVID-19, one dose provides a high level of protection.
Stephen Evans, professor of pharmaco-epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said policymakers are being forced to balance the potential risks and benefits in the midst of the disaster.
“We have a crisis situation in the UK with a new variant spreading rapidly, and as has become clear to all by 2020, delays have cost lives,” Evans said. “If the means of doses and people to vaccinate are limited, then vaccinating more people with possibly less efficacy is arguably better than having more complete efficacy in only half.”
In the US, Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar rejected such a strategy, saying on ABC’s “Good Morning America” that the scientific data “just isn’t there” to support that approach.
The US rollout has been characterized by a multitude of logistical hurdles, a patchwork of approaches by state and local governments, and confusion. Some people are not sure where and when to get an injection.
Fauci acknowledged this weekend that “we are not where we want to be,” but expressed optimism that momentum will pick up in mid-January. He said President-elect Joe Biden’s goal of vaccinating 100 million people in his first 100 days in office is “realistic.”
On Sunday, India, the world’s second-most populous country, approved the first two COVID-19 vaccines: the Oxford AstraZeneca and another developed by an Indian company. The move paves the way for a massive immunization program in the desperately poor nation of 1.4 billion people.
India has confirmed more than 10.3 million cases of the virus, the second in the world after the US. It has also reported about 150,000 deaths.
None of the approved vaccines require ultra-cold storage like some others. Instead, they can be kept in refrigerators, making them easier to handle in less developed parts of the world.
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Associated Press writers around the world contributed to this report.