The effort to beat the coronavirus gained ground on Monday, when Britain introduced another vaccine COVID-19 and the first people inoculated in the United States began to roll up their sleeves for their second and final dose.
Meanwhile, authorities in France and other parts of Europe have been criticized for slow implementations and delays.
Helen Cordova, an intensive nurse, received her second dose of the Pfizer vaccine at the Kaiser Permanente Los Angeles Medical Center along with other doctors and nurses, prescribed three weeks after receiving her first injection at the start of the vaccination campaign in the United States.
“I am very excited because it means that I am much closer to having immunity and being a little safer when I come to work and, you know, just being close to my family,” said Cordova.
On Monday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that nearly 4.6 million vaccines were dispensed in the United States after a slow and irregular start to the campaign, marked by confusion, a plethora of logistical obstacles and a quilt patchwork of approaches by state and local governments.
Over the weekend, US government officials reported that vaccinations increased significantly, with Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease specialist, saying that 1.5 million injections were administered in 72 hours, or about 500,000 a day.
Meanwhile, Britain has become the first nation to start using the COVID-19 vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford, increasing its national inoculation campaign amid rising rates of infection attributed to a new and seemingly new variant. most contagious virus.
Brian Pinker, an 82-year-old dialysis patient, received his first injection at Oxford University Hospital, saying in a statement, “Now I can really hope to celebrate my 48th wedding anniversary.”
Britain’s vaccination program started on December 8 with the injection developed by Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech.
The country has registered more than 50,000 new coronavirus infections per day for the past six days, and deaths have gone from 75,000, one of the worst deaths in Europe.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced a wave of near-lockdowns the weekend before Christmas and warned on Monday that “difficult, difficult” weeks are coming and that stricter restrictions will come soon: “If you look at the numbers, there is no doubt that we will have to take tougher measures. ”
Israel appears to be among the world leaders in the vaccination campaign, inoculating more than 1 million people, or about 12% of its population, in just over two weeks. The effort was driven 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 only a few hundred people vaccinated after the first week and reigniting anger over the government’s handling of the pandemic.
The slow implementation was attributed to maladministration, lack of staff during the holidays and a complex consent policy designed to accommodate vaccine skepticism among the French.
“It is a state scandal,” Jean Rottner, president of the Grand-Est region in eastern France, told France-2 television. “Being vaccinated is becoming more complicated than buying a car.”
Health Minister Olivier Veran has promised that by the end of Monday, several thousand people will have been vaccinated, with the pace accelerating throughout the week. But that would still leave France far behind its neighbors.
French media broadcast charts comparing vaccine numbers in several countries: In France, a nation of 67 million people, only 516 people were vaccinated in the first six days, according to the French Ministry of Health. Germany’s total in the first week exceeded 200,000 and Italy’s exceeded 100,000. Millions have been vaccinated in the United States and China.
The European Union also faced growing criticism about the slow implementation of COVID-19 shots in the 27-nation bloc of 450 million people.
EU Commission spokesman Eric Mamer said the main problem “is a question of production capacity, an issue that everyone is facing”.
The EU has sealed six vaccine contracts with several manufacturers. But only the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine has been approved for use across the EU. EU drug regulators are due to decide on Wednesday whether to recommend the authorization of the Moderna vaccine.
Aspects of Britain’s vaccination plans have also sparked controversy.
British health officials want to give the first dose to as many people as possible immediately, instead of keeping the vaccine in reserve to ensure recipients receive their second injection in time a few weeks later. The plan requires extending the time between doses to up to 12 weeks.
While two doses are needed to fully protect against COVID-19, one dose still offers a high level of protection.
In the United States, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar rejected this strategy, saying on ABC’s “Good Morning America” program that scientific data “just doesn’t exist” to support this approach.
The United States has withheld large quantities of vaccines for fear of manufacturing delays that could delay the second required dose.
Fauci acknowledged over the weekend that “we are not where we want to be” with regard to the vaccination campaign, but expressed optimism that the momentum will recover 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 second most populous country in the world, authorized its first two COVID-19 vaccines – Oxford-AstraZeneca and another developed by an Indian company. The move paves the way for a huge inoculation 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 behind the USA. He also reported about 150,000 deaths.
None of the approved vaccines require the ultra-cool storage that some others do. 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.