Programs in many countries have been hampered by slow-moving bureaucracies, a lack of nurses and shortages of vital equipment.

By Marc Santora

With a more contagious variant of the coronavirus forcing England to impose a strict new national lockdown and European nations extending restrictions in the face of rising cases, political leaders have promised that mass vaccinations will bring an end to the suffering.

But in the race to beat the virus, the virus is still way out in front.

There are shortages of needles in Italy, Greece and other countries. Spain has not trained enough nurses. France has only managed to vaccinate around 7,000 people. Poland’s program was rocked by scandal after it was revealed that celebrities were given preferential treatment. There are calls in Germany to take control over vaccine purchases from European Union authorities. Nearly every country in Europe has complained about burdensome paperwork.

And then there is the Netherlands, which has not even begun its campaign.

Around the world, inoculation efforts are rolling out slower than promised, even as new cases soar and record numbers of virus patients flood hospitals, placing a double burden on health care providers tasked with leading vaccination drives.

In Europe, where most countries have been under varying degrees of lockdown for months, frustration is building as restrictions have been stepped up or extended while national vaccination efforts are stymied by various problems.

The threat posed by the fast-spreading variant is adding extra urgency to an already daunting challenge. And even in places where the rollout has been relatively smooth, it is not nearly fast enough to get ahead of the virus.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson said England would be locked down until inoculations reached the four most vulnerable groups: nursing home residents and those who care for them, everyone over the age of 70, frontline health and social care workers, and extremely vulnerable individuals.

“If we succeed in vaccinating all those groups, we will have removed huge numbers of people from the path of the virus,” he said.

Mr. Johnson said that goal could be achieved by the middle of February, but that the pace of vaccinations would need to increase drastically.

The four groups he cited included 13.9 million people, according to Nadhim Zahawi, the minister overseeing the vaccine effort.

Since the campaign started on Dec. 8, 1.1 million people in England have been vaccinated, Mr. Johnson said Tuesday. Notably, 23 percent of people over 80 have gotten inoculations, and that age group could be fully vaccinated within three weeks, he said.

With the introduction on Monday of the first doses of the vaccine developed by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca, British officials said the campaign could be ramped up.

To meet the February target, two million doses need to be given every week.

Countries of the European Union, meanwhile, started their campaigns weeks after Britain and the United States because of a slower approval process and have had to rely on a single vaccine, made by Pfizer and BioNTech.

While the bloc’s medical regulatory agency is expected to approve a vaccine from Moderna this week, it has yet to begin consideration of the Oxford-AstraZeneca one, which is easier to distribute as it does not need to be kept at extremely cold temperatures.

For the moment, one of the biggest problems in Europe is distribution.

The situation is similar to that in the United States, where about 4.5 million people have received a dose of a Covid-19 vaccine, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, using only a fraction of the 15 million doses delivered by manufacturers.

One complicating factor is that some countries have turned to local health authorities to develop their own strategies, leading to problems.

In Spain, it is a shortage of nurses. For instance, in the Catalonia region less than a fifth of the doses on hand have been used and local health authorities acknowledge they do not have enough trained nurses.

Covid-19 Vaccines ›

Answers to Your Vaccine Questions

With distribution of a coronavirus vaccine beginning in the U.S., here are answers to some questions you may be wondering about:

• • If I live in the U.S., when can I get the vaccine? While the exact order of vaccine recipients may vary by state, most will likely put medical workers and residents of long-term care facilities first. If you want to understand how this decision is getting made, this article will help.
  • When can I return to normal life after being vaccinated? Life will return to normal only when society as a whole gains enough protection against the coronavirus. Once countries authorize a vaccine, they’ll only be able to vaccinate a few percent of their citizens at most in the first couple months. The unvaccinated majority will still remain vulnerable to getting infected. A growing number of coronavirus vaccines are showing robust protection against becoming sick. But it’s also possible for people to spread the virus without even knowing they’re infected because they experience only mild symptoms or none at all. Scientists don’t yet know if the vaccines also block the transmission of the coronavirus. So for the time being, even vaccinated people will need to wear masks, avoid indoor crowds, and so on. Once enough people get vaccinated, it will become very difficult for the coronavirus to find vulnerable people to infect. Depending on how quickly we as a society achieve that goal, life might start approaching something like normal by the fall 2021.
  • If I’ve been vaccinated, do I still need to wear a mask? Yes, but not forever. Here’s why. The coronavirus vaccines are injected deep into the muscles and stimulate the immune system to produce antibodies. This appears to be enough protection to keep the vaccinated person from getting ill. But what’s not clear is whether it’s possible for the virus to bloom in the nose — and be sneezed or breathed out to infect others — even as antibodies elsewhere in the body have mobilized to prevent the vaccinated person from getting sick. The vaccine clinical trials were designed to determine whether vaccinated people are protected from illness — not to find out whether they could still spread the coronavirus. Based on studies of flu vaccine and even patients infected with Covid-19, researchers have reason to be hopeful that vaccinated people won’t spread the virus, but more research is needed. In the meantime, everyone — even vaccinated people — will need to think of themselves as possible silent spreaders and keep wearing a mask. Read more here.
  • Will it hurt? What are the side effects? The Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine is delivered as a shot in the arm, like other typical vaccines. The injection into your arm won’t feel different than any other vaccine, but the rate of short-lived side effects does appear higher than a flu shot. Tens of thousands of people have already received the vaccines, and none of them have reported any serious health problems. The side effects, which can resemble the symptoms of Covid-19, last about a day and appear more likely after the second dose. Early reports from vaccine trials suggest some people might need to take a day off from work because they feel lousy after receiving the second dose. In the Pfizer study, about half developed fatigue. Other side effects occurred in at least 25 to 33 percent of patients, sometimes more, including headaches, chills and muscle pain. While these experiences aren’t pleasant, they are a good sign that your own immune system is mounting a potent response to the vaccine that will provide long-lasting immunity.
  • Will mRNA vaccines change my genes? No. The vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer use a genetic molecule to prime the immune system. That molecule, known as mRNA, is eventually destroyed by the body. The mRNA is packaged in an oily bubble that can fuse to a cell, allowing the molecule to slip in. The cell uses the mRNA to make proteins from the coronavirus, which can stimulate the immune system. At any moment, each of our cells may contain hundreds of thousands of mRNA molecules, which they produce in order to make proteins of their own. Once those proteins are made, our cells then shred the mRNA with special enzymes. The mRNA molecules our cells make can only survive a matter of minutes. The mRNA in vaccines is engineered to withstand the cell’s enzymes a bit longer, so that the cells can make extra virus proteins and prompt a stronger immune response. But the mRNA can only last for a few days at most before they are destroyed.

  Source: Read Full Article