EU leaders rushed to contain growing concern about the slow pace of national vaccination campaigns, promising that anyone who wants to be vaccinated will do so.
Meanwhile, the founder of BioNTech, the German company pioneering the first vaccine to be approved in Europe, said the EU took too long to secure vaccine stocks and warned of potential supply bottlenecks amid rising global demand.
France is under increased pressure to accelerate its immunization campaign, with only a few hundred doses administered so far, compared with tens of thousands in Germany and almost a million in the United Kingdom. Two injections of the BioNTech / Pfizer vaccine are required for an individual to be fully protected.
Opposition doctors and politicians accused the French government of being too cautious in its approach, in part to accommodate vaccine skeptics, and of being ill-prepared for the logistical challenges of the deployment. President Emmanuel Macron addressed these issues head-on in his televised New Year’s speech, saying that he “would not allow unjustified slowness to take over the wrong reasons”.
“Every Frenchman who wants to must be able to be vaccinated,” he added.
After initially deciding to focus on elderly people in nursing homes and not vaccinating medical and nursing staff until the end of February, France announced that medical staff aged 50 and over would receive vaccines on Monday. France will also open its first urban immunization centers before the beginning of February. “Rest assured, the vaccination campaign will be speeding up soon,” said Health Minister Olivier Véran.
Meanwhile, Uğur Şahin, chief executive of BioNTech, the German vaccine manufacturer, criticized the EU’s strategy for purchasing vaccines, saying it had been very hesitant. “The process in Europe was certainly not as fast and direct as in other countries,” Şahin told Der Spiegel. “Partly because the European Union is not directly authorized and member states have a say. In a negotiation. . . it may take time. “
President Emmanuel Macron says that every Frenchman who wants to must be vaccinated. © AFP / Getty
He said the EU also bet on other producers who were unable to deliver as quickly as BioNTech and Pfizer. “Clearly, there was the impression that ‘we will have enough, and things will not be so bad, and we have everything under control,'” said Şahin.
He also warned about pressure on supplies of the BioNTech / Pfizer vaccine. “It doesn’t look so good now, a gap has arisen, because there is a lack of other vaccines that have been approved and we have to fill that gap with our vaccine,” he said. The US ordered 200 million doses of the BioNTech / Pfizer vaccine, while the EU secured 300 million.
It is not just France that is being criticized for its slow launch. Although the United States started faster than France or Germany, it fell far short of its goal of vaccinating 20 million people by the end of December, with only 2.8 million receiving the vaccine last month.
About 170,000 people in long-term care facilities received the injection by December 30, although 2.2 million doses have been distributed to residents, according to data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In the UK – the first country to launch a mass immunization campaign using the BioNTech / Pfizer jab – there were also hiccups. Nearly 945,000 people have received the injection since December 8. But doubts have been raised about whether the government will be able to deliver on its promise to inoculate all Britons over 50 and young people whose health is especially vulnerable, by the end of March.
UK ministers welcomed the approval this week of the country’s local vaccine, developed by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca, as “a game changer”. However, only 530,000 doses will be available on Monday, when vaccinations with the new product begin.
This is partly because each batch of doses must be checked for safety and quality before being released. Health officials say the rate-limiting factor will be how quickly manufacturers can deliver doses.
UK medical directors warned this week that the availability of Covid-19 vaccines will continue to be a problem for “several months”. “Vaccine shortages are a reality that cannot be ignored,” they said.
In Germany, too, the authorities are under pressure due to the slow pace of the vaccination campaign. Speaking to reporters earlier this week, Health Minister Jens Spahn urged people to be patient, saying supplies of the vaccine are “tight around the world”. But he insisted that the situation would improve as more vaccines received regulatory approval.
Lars Klingbeil, secretary general of the Social Democrats, blamed Spahn for the slow start to deployment. “The minister had months to prepare for the planned start of vaccines,” he told the Rheinische Post. “And he also received all the powers he needed to do that.”
Additional reporting by Sara Germano, Donato Mancini and Davide Ghiglione