Some in France, Germany, UK, avoid AstraZeneca for Pfizer: Reports

• Some insist on a specific shot during the rollout of vaccines in France, Germany and the United Kingdom.
• In Europe, officials are struggling to give AstraZeneca a go and address their concerns about performance.
• In the UK, reports are mixed. The Washington Post suggested that some prefer the AstraZeneca vaccine, calling it the ‘English’.
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People receiving vaccinations in the UK, France and Germany are hampering the deployment by trying to insist on receiving a specific shot, according to numerous reports.

On the European continent, officials pointed to unfilled appointments and empty vaccination centers when offering the dose of AstraZeneca.

The resistance appears to stem from trial data suggesting that the vaccine is less effective than shots made by Pfizer, while the other vaccine is widely used in Europe.

In the UK, reports are more diverse, with anecdotal reports of some people insisting on the Pfizer jab, while others insisting on the AstraZeneca one, citing local credentials.

This is what happens there:

In the UK, the picture is more complicated. According to The Washington Post, other Britons are canceling and discussing vaccinations to secure the Pfizer survey.

According to the outlet, the strategy is based on rumors and information about which centers have the doses.

It also points to the opposite phenomenon: people are insisting on getting the AstraZeneca shot because AstraZeneca is jointly based in the UK, and developed the vaccine with the University of Oxford.

A doctor told the BBC on Sunday that his fellow colleagues had a slight preference for the Pfizer vaccine, but that his patients preferred the Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccine made in Britain.

Differences in effectiveness data

The dynamics appear to be largely shaped by data from the Phase 3 trials of both vaccines.

As reported by Isabella Jibilian of Insider in December, the question was raised about AstraZeneca’s trials when the company announced that the vaccine was 62% effective after two full doses, but 90% effective after a half dose and a full dose. of the vaccine.

British regulators now set the effectiveness of the vaccine at 70%, reports The Washington Post, and the European Medicines Agency at 60%.

Compared to the reported 95% efficacy of the Pfizer vaccine in its trials, it would be easy to believe that the AstraZeneca vaccine does not perform as well.

However, Andrew Pollard, the chief scientist on the development of the vaccine for AstraZeneca, told the Post that figures are not directly comparable.

“Unless you [Pfizer and AstraZeneca] “head-to-head trials, you do not really know if a 95 percent and 62 percent figure in another process means the same thing,” Pollard told The Washington Post.

Results of such a head-to-head trial should be available soon, he said.

Both the Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines “offer a very high level of protection against serious diseases” and appear to have “good safety profiles”, said the Joint Vaccination and Immunization Committee of the United Kingdom, where Pollard is a lead scientist.

Pollard told the Post that he would personally ‘get any vaccine’.

Actual data in countries where the vaccines have been rolled out, such as Israel and the United Kingdom, are beginning to provide more clarity on the effectiveness of the vaccines.