The Daily Beast
Fear and hatred for the AstraZeneca vaccine as Italy prepares for the third deadly wave
Alessandra Tarantino / APROME – At Rome’s Termini train station, where the AstraZeneca vaccine is being administered to residents living in the city center, several people were waiting for their consultations outside a huge red “decontamination” station on Friday in the morning. “I’m thinking of canceling,” said Maria Grazia Bertucci, a teacher who is among those qualified to receive the vaccine. “They say it’s safe, but I’m sure that’s what they said to the people who died, too.” ‘Someone had to go first’: Europa Kickstarts Vaccine Nationalism War An elderly man beside her encouraged her to go ahead, saying her COVID-19 is going to kill her before the vaccine. Others soon got into the conversation about what was most risky – the disease or its prevention. Soon everyone was breaking the social detachment regulations, moving their designated spots on the floor and discussing whether they should go through the big red decontamination box or not. Two women picked up the phone worriedly. A man walked away, clearly deciding not to proceed. The station attendant who checked the temperatures said it had been that way since yesterday. “How do you calm your fears when the vaccine that is about to be injected into your arms can be a deadly dose,” he said. “I am happy to have mine last month and survived.” Just when Italy needs the panacea for successful vaccines – with a third wave emerging – fear is looming at vaccine centers across the country. The AstraZeneca vaccine has already been unevenly launched in Europe, but the situation is now much more serious with at least 7 countries bringing partial suspensions in the vaccine’s distribution and five deaths potentially linked to the vaccine across Europe under investigation. There is no evidence that the vaccine is dangerous. Stefano Paterno, a 43-year-old Navy officer, was excited to finally receive his AstraZeneca vaccine at his naval base in Sicily last week, according to his family. The same happened with Davide Villa, 50, a police officer who was shot two weeks ago. As members of the security forces, both qualified for the AstraZeneca jab, which they both received from the same lot: lot ABV2856, which was administered on the island of Sicily. Both men are dead: Paterno died just hours after receiving his vaccine this week, and Villa died 12 days after his. And now a prosecutor in Sicily has opened a wrongful death investigation to determine whether it was a bizarre coincidence or a bad batch of vax. Since then, the police have hijacked the entire remaining ABV2856 lot across the country. The British-Swedish vaccine Oxford-AstraZeneca is easily the most cursed vaccine on the market, thanks to a series of negative publicity from Germany and France about its effectiveness in people over 55 along with a myriad of problems with production that have delayed deliveries. Italy banned the export of the vaccine to Australia last week due to deficiencies in Europe. The vaccine has not yet been approved in the United States due to the slow clinical trials required by the FDA, but there are “tens of millions” of unused doses in the United States. deep-freezing warehouses that could be brought back to Europe. “We understand that other governments may have contacted the US government about donating AstraZeneca doses, and we ask the US government to carefully consider these requests,” said Gonzalo Viña, an AstraZeneca spokesman to the New York Times. A US official later told Reuters that “there was no way” Washington could send any dose to Europe. But now, thanks to reports on blood clotting and deaths among some recipients, these doses may not even be used if sent to Europe. . AstraZeneca is now suspended in Iceland, Denmark and Norway after a 60-year-old woman who was shot in Denmark died of a blood clot. Italy, Austria, Estonia, Lithuania, Luxembourg and Romania have suspended lots of the shot used by the two Italians, and several other countries have questioned the European Medicines Agency, which issued a statement trying to allay fears. “The position of the EMA PRAC safety committee is that the benefits of the vaccine continue to outweigh its risks and the vaccine can continue to be administered while investigating cases of thromboembolic events is ongoing,” the statement said. AstraZeneca officials told Reuters that the “vaccine has been extensively studied in human tests and peer-reviewed data”, confirming that “the vaccine was generally well tolerated”. Vaccine problems are exactly the kind of nightmare scenario that does not take a year for a pandemic. A year ago, Italy started this pandemic with a draconian blockade that showed results in the summer, before a second wave in the fall was established after the reopening of schools and businesses. The numbers dropped again after the country blocked Christmas and New Year, but thanks to the variants – and now the lack of vaccines – a third wave is clearly on the horizon, after the country reported almost 26,000 new cases and 373 deaths in the United States. the past 24 hours, pushing the COVID-19 death toll now well over 100,000 last year, threatening to force the country back to the blockade, back to the starting point. Read more in The Daily Beast. your inbox every day. Subscribe now! Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper into the stories that matter to you. To know more.