Forget the herd’s immunity. In Europe, this week, it seemed that the “herd mentality” was the dominant force in the battle against COVID-19.
On Monday, Germany raised a red flag, temporarily suspending the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine so that it could investigate possible links with blood clots after seven cases of thrombosis in 1.6 million patients inoculated with the vaccine in Germany; three cases were fatal. In response, another dozen European countries marched behind Berlin, dropping the vaccine to investigate further and effectively stop the already anemic COVID immunization programs.
To date, less than 5 percent of citizens in Europe have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, compared with 13 percent in the United States. Freudenstein, policy director at the Martens Center, a Brussels-based think tank, told Yahoo News. He says the United States, where 23% of citizens have had at least one chance, appears to be “a shining example” of how the COVID crisis can be quickly circumvented. The suspension of the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine has further muddied the waters of some Americans, a surprising number of whom have mixed feelings about inoculation.
On Thursday, the European Medicines Agency, the European Union’s regulatory arm, after investigating the issue, again gave the green light to the AstraZeneca injection, which was co-created by the Swedish-British pharmaceutical company and the University of Oxford, saying: “This is a safe and effective vaccine. ”This guarantee has led most countries to reverse the course. French Prime Minister Jean Castex and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson were among those who publicly rolled up their sleeves on Friday for the AstraZeneca shoot. But the damage to public confidence, at least for now, was done.
“The population is afraid that this vaccine could be dangerous,” Dr. José Martín Moreno, an epidemiologist and professor of preventive medicine and public health at the University of Valencia, in Spain, told El Pais. Europeans, he said, “don’t know what to believe.” And that happens at the very moment when the continent is being hit by a third wave of COVID: Italy, as well as Paris and Hamburg are again under block, a threat that is approaching all of Germany, France and beyond.
The confusing episode about AstraZeneca’s inoculations may have a ripple effect, obscuring the question of vaccination not only for EU citizens, but at least for some Americans. Still awaiting FDA approval, the AstraZeneca vaccine is not yet being used in the United States, although the Trump administration has ordered 300 million doses, millions of which have been stored.
Richard Carpiano, professor of public policy and sociology at the University of California, Riverside, said the European flap “poisons the vaccine well” for many Americans who are already “hesitant about the vaccine”. According to an NPR / PBS NewsHour / Marist survey of Americans released last Friday, 30% of respondents said they did not plan to be vaccinated against COVID-19, while 3% said they were still unsure.
Carpiano said those who are skeptical of vaccines are a diverse group, some influenced by disinformation and disinformation campaigns, some conspirators, some members of ethnic groups historically suspicious of medical care and some concerned with getting the vaccine during pregnancy. “We see many small groups with different reasons that really add up to become a kind of hesitation ecosystem,” he said.
“Just the fact that this question mark has been raised will fuel conspiracy theories about the state and pharmaceutical companies that hide evidence of the dangerous side effects of vaccines, which seems to be the root of many anti-xxx messages,” said sociologist Jonathan Kennedy , professor of global public health at Queen Mary University of London. Kennedy’s research led him to believe that “most people are pro-vaccines or just don’t know – and want to do the best for their family. They just need a little persuasion. ”They also need“ clear and consistent messages, ”he said, which has not been a strong point for European or American officials during the pandemic.
Shobita Parthasarathy, professor of public policy and director of the Science, Technology and Public Policy Program at the University of Michigan, believes that European countries acted responsibly when they stopped using the vaccine to investigate a handful of cases of patients who developed blood clots afterwards of being shot by AstraZeneca, three of them died. “Taking this seriously and investigating was the only way they could go – and a demonstration of them doing their job,” she said. Had they not done so, they would have fueled the public’s growing distrust of agencies they do not believe reflect their concerns, added Parthasarathy.
However, the turnaround mirrored the message reversals that characterized the entire pandemic, which Parthasarathy believes emphasizes the need for honesty. Speaking to the public, she heard constant references to the initial advice from the Trump administration’s coronavirus task force that the general public should not wear masks, a message initially conveyed by Dr. Anthony Fauci, the world’s leading infectious disease specialist. parents.
“The reason it was so devastating is that it was in mid-March 2020. The NBA was closed. Tom Hanks had COVID, everyone was listening and the first thing Fauci said is, ‘You don’t have to wear a mask,’ ”said Parthasarathy. “What he didn’t say was, ‘We have a shortage of PPE. We are reserving masks for healthcare professionals’ ”. She believes that if the reality had been explained, it would have made all the difference and saved Americans from the confusion that resulted when the message changed to “Wear a mask whenever you go out. “
Parthasarathy believes that messages in the US are on the right track now, as is the American vaccination program. “We are managing. We’re going to get in the way of this. Europe is in a far more dire situation with regard to hesitation in vaccination than we are, ”she said.
A recent survey by the Wellcome Trust showed that only 47 percent of the French population believes that vaccines are safe and, according to a survey by the Ipsos World Economic Forum last December, only 40 percent of French people plan to get vaccinated, followed by 62 percent of Italians and Spaniards and 65% of Germans. If these same percentages cease to be vaccinated for COVID-19, not only will Europe not meet its summer goal of having 70% of its population vaccinated – the percentage deemed necessary to achieve collective immunity – but the virus will continue to mutate, possibly in strains that will threaten other parts of the world.
Despite the current bumps in the launch of vaccines, Freudenstein, for example, is optimistic that situations can change for the better and quickly. He points to the US state just 10 weeks ago, when COVID rates were skyrocketing and the country seemed more divided in decades. “After [the Capitol attack on] January 6, the ‘conventional wisdom’ in Europe was that the US would implode, ”being unable to face the challenges caused by the pandemic and also by the social upheaval. “Look, a little more than two months later, the United States looks fantastic. And now Europeans are looking totally stupid. “
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