European governments on Friday rushed to lift the suspension of AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine and reassure an exhausted and anxious public that it is safe amid a new wave of infections that has led to many countries severely restricting on movement and enterprises re-established.
German officials have warned that plans to ease restrictions on Easter may need to be suspended, saying more measures will be needed in the coming weeks. Paris was one of the many cities in France where people were essentially ordered to stay at home. Italy entered its third national exclusion on Monday, and Poland will impose its own exclusion on Saturday.
The rapid steps to tighten the already relatively strict restrictions are coming to almost every country in Europe that has stopped using the AstraZeneca vaccine – including France, Germany, Italy and Spain – has said it will start using again.
But the short cessation of vaccine use underscores the slow pace of mass inoculation campaigns, which has led officials to warn that the only way to control the virus was restrictions.
One year into the pandemic, the routine is now bitter in Europe.
Cases of infection are starting to increase. Restrictions are being tightened and society is becoming quiet, but by the time people are essentially confined to their homes again, hospitals are filled. Death follows.
Across Europe, the official death toll rose to more than 900,000 last week, according to the World Health Organization. But this spring it had to be different.
Vaccines roll out, though it does stop at a pace. It is effective. They can stop serious diseases and death. But for the vast majority of people in Europe, and around the world, they are anxiously out of reach.
The latest outbreaks are a serious reminder that not enough people have been vaccinated to seriously enforce the impact of a new wave of infection spreading across the continent. Governments are thus being forced to step up already difficult restrictions on business and social interactions.
“There are still not enough vaccine doses in Europe to stop the third wave by vaccination alone,” German Health Minister Jens Spahn said on Friday. “Even if the delivery of EU orders is reliable, it will take a few more weeks until the risk groups are fully vaccinated.”
Mass vaccination efforts across the European Union have been brought into deeper turmoil this week, with more than a dozen countries suspending the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine, while reports of a possible link to a small number of blood clots and abnormal bleeding investigated.
The bloc’s medical regulator, the European Medicines Agency, said on Thursday that the investigation had come to the firm conclusion that the vaccine was ‘safe and effective’. Although it will continue to look into any connection with the deviations, the agency noted that any threat would be very small, and that the shots would prevent significantly more deaths than they would cause.
Political leaders have tried to undermine the public’s trust and confidence in AstraZeneca and vaccines more widely – with a number of them rolling up their sleeves and getting the shots themselves to drive the point home.
In France, where skepticism about vaccines is deep, Jean Castex, the 55-year-old prime minister of the country, flashes an inch up to television cameras after get his first dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine in a military hospital in the Val-de-Marne area, southeast of Paris.
Although the French resumed administration of the vaccine, the top health regulator only recommended it for people 55 years and older, as blood disorders were found in people younger than it. It said other vaccines should be used for younger people now.
Lithuania also resumed use of AstraZeneca vaccines on Friday, and the country’s president, prime minister and health minister would receive shots on Monday.
While confidence in AstraZeneca remains high in Britain, where the vaccine was developed in collaboration with researchers from the University of Oxford, Prime Minister Boris Johnson got his chance on Friday when he wanted to ease the minds of millions of people in the country who have already received it. .
Yet some countries have said they need more time to investigate, including Sweden, Denmark and Norway.
In Norway, the warning was driven by preliminary findings from medical experts there and in Germany suggesting they could find a link between the vaccine and the extremely rare blood disorders. The German experts said that the thrombosis of the sinus or cerebral vein suffered days after receiving the vaccine by 13 Germans was caused by an immune system reaction which they said could be linked to the shot. They have not released detailed data, but plan to submit their findings to The Lancet.
AstraZeneca did not comment on the allegations on Friday.
Dr James Bussel, an expert on platelet disorders and a professor emeritus at Weill Cornell Medicine, said the occurrence of abnormal clotting and low platelets in people under 50 is uncommon. He noted that researchers in Europe have identified antibodies produced by the immune system – possibly in a very unusual response to the vaccine – that may have activated the platelets and started a cascade of abnormal clotting and bleeding.
Researchers in both Germany and Norway will continue the investigation and in Germany, where the vaccine is being re-administered, doctors are now warning anyone who gets an AstraZeneca shot to go to a doctor immediately if they have a headache more than three days later, dizziness or dull face. They said the problems could probably be dealt with if caught in time.
And on Friday, Chancellor Angela Merkel joined other European leaders to reassure the public and told reporters she had no doubt about getting an AstraZeneca chance, but was waiting for her turn according to the German priority system.
But the challenge for leaders in much of Europe is far deeper than restoring confidence in one vaccine. They now need to find a way to deliver more vaccines to the people who need them most, at a time when the virus is once again claiming around 2,000 lives a day.
France on Wednesday reported nearly 40,000 new cases of coronavirus, according to a New York Times database – the highest number since November, when a second wave of infection forced the entire country to shut down.
Last week, health officials in Paris ordered hospitals to cancel many of their procedures to make room for Covid-19 patients. And this week, some patients were transferred to other regions to ease the pressure on hospitals.
Businesses that are considered unimportant are forced to close, extracurricular activities are restricted to a radius of six kilometers from a person’s home and travel to other regions is prohibited. Schools will remain open, but everything else must basically stop.
With less than 10 percent of the population receiving even one dose of vaccine, Bruno Riou, head of the crisis center for public hospitals in Paris, said exclusion was the only option.
“I hear a lot of people say that a week without exclusion is a week that is won,” Riou said. “For me, it’s a week lost.”
In general in Europe, promises to ease restrictions against Easter are now being reversed. In Germany, where business is growing rapidly, Ms. Merkel warned that the country faces the possibility of a stricter closure, and that a decision will be made on Monday.
She said a planned easing of restrictions in some states, including opening stores and allowing more people, may have to be postponed, even as Germans look forward to their Easter holiday.
Thomas Hale, an associate professor of public policy at the University of Oxford, a research group that monitors coronavirus infections around the world, said it was remarkable how similar the pattern had been in recent days across Europe to the situation a year ago. ago.
“A big question is whether people will do again in the spring of 2021 what they did in the spring of 2020,” he said.
Reporting was contributed by Constant Mehut in Paris, Melissa Eddy in Berlin, Denise Grady in New York and Rebecca Robbins in Bellingham, Washington.