A few days before the start of summer, they fear that the Delta variant and the slowdown in vaccination will prolong the pandemic in Europe

While G7 leaders meet at Carbis Bay in Cornwall, southern England, Millions of vaccine doses remain in European pharmacies and vaccination centers, not least due to reluctance to inject the AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson developments.

The commitment of world leaders to provide a billion doses has the flip side that in Europe, as in the United States, millions of doses in stock are blocked in pharmacies or private medical practices.. The question is beginning to worry the health authorities, who hoped to achieve mass vaccination soon, particularly concerned about the exponential propagation of the delta or Indian variant. Everyone sees that this variant now accounts for 91% of infections in the UK.

In particular, the injections of private caregivers or pharmacies do not take off. High hopes for access to Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine, which has the benefit of requiring a single injection, have been dashed as a solution to banish distrust of the AstraZeneca and Oxford “coup d’état”, derived from the rare cases of thrombosis.

Even this data is coming at the same time as warnings from the World Health Organization. For the establishment, the level of vaccination in Europe is not sufficient to prevent a resurgence of the pandemic. The European branch of the WHO has called for avoiding the “mistake” of increasing cases in the summer of 2020.

“Vaccination coverage is far from sufficient,” warned WHO European director Hans Kluge at an online press conference Thursday. The way forward to achieve coverage of at least 80% of the adult population is “still considerable”, he stressed, asking to maintain hygiene and distancing measures and to avoid home trips. .

Italy, a moving affair

Camilla Canepa, a young woman from Genoa who died at 18 after receiving the AstraZeneca vaccine, once again challenged the use of this development. “She was preparing for her baccalaureate, now we’re going to donate her organs. I would have liked it that way, ”her parents said after making the case known.

The teenager was admitted to intensive care at the San Martino Institute in Genoa, on the night of Saturday to Sunday after having applied the first dose on May 30. A few days after receiving the AstraZeneca vaccine, with her hopes of an unrestricted summer, the young woman died in this Genoese polyclinic.

Following this affair, thehe experts from the country’s scientific technical committee have reread the observations of the European Medicines Agency for approval to decide whether or not to stop the administration of the AstraZeneca vaccine to people under 60 years of age. Below this threshold, the benefit / risk ratio is no longer an advantage for the vaccine. And this is even more true for young people and women, like Camilla, 18, who after receiving the antidote from Oxford, died from one of those rare thromboses combined with reduced blood platelets.

France is losing speed

With nearly 3 million doses in stock in pharmacies or private medical practices, health authorities are lagging behind vaccination centers. Even Moderna’s messenger RNA vaccine circulates more slowly, while Janssen’s single-injection vaccine is underused there.

On June 2, vaccinators stocked millions of doses, mostly in pharmacies and doctors ‘or nurses’ offices. This is only a small part of the 47.7 million doses given in six months. But this is three times more than those of Pfizer, a vaccine intended exclusively for vaccination centers and hospitals, and distributed in very large volumes, with 32 million doses received.

Not all vaccines have the same enthusiasm. Therefore, only 30% of the population said they trusted the British vaccine AstraZeneca according to an Odoxa survey in early April. As of May 3, only 4 of the 5 million doses received had been injected. The question these days is whether the 7 million cumulative doses of these developments will find receptors, which remains unknown. Especially since only those over 55 are eligible for this vaccine.

On the contrary, it is the Pfizer vaccine that offers the greatest efficacy, enjoys the best image and is in the majority in the current campaign. Since its creation, 67.9% of vaccinations have been carried out with the Pfizer / BioNtech vaccine, 23.9% with AstraZeneca and 7.7% with Moderna, according to the latest data from the health authority.

Vaccination in UK fail?

Everyone is monitoring the progression of infections in the country. For some, this is the reason for a surge in “anti-vaccines”, at least on social networks. The United Kingdom, the European country where the vaccination plan is most advanced -60% with a first dose and 42% with the full plan-, is also one of the places where more and more COVID 19 infections are on the rise.

Over 90% of UK coronavirus cases are the Delta variantthe country’s health minister said. Speaking to a parliamentary committee Thursday, Matt Hancock said the Delta variant, which originated in India, “now accounts for 91% of new cases.” Authorities yesterday confirmed 7,232 new cases and seven deaths, as hospital admissions increased.

Even a prominent government scientist, Susan Michie, said that the chinstrap is a legacy of the pandemic which should remain indefinitely, This adds unease among the British, who already see June 21 lost in the almanac, when they were awaiting one of the last stages of de-escalation.

The authorities do not believe that pessimism can be justified. Today, the daily death toll remains at a particularly low level. – 0.14 per million inhabitants – despite the fact that Prime Minister Boris Johnson has stressed that “in some cases hospitalizations are increasing, but not at the speed of the second wave”.

However, The first objective of vaccines against Covid-19 is not fundamentally called into question by the Delta variant: in fact, they prevent the development of serious forms of the disease. The data, in real situation, published by the national health authority (NHS) indicate that the effectiveness of the two doses of Pfizer is 88% and for AstraZeneca 60%, measures to fight against this dominant variant.

The assurance for the countries that make up the European Union is that 60% of the vaccination plan is supported by the development of Pfizer / BioNTech, unlike the UK, where two-thirds were hits from University products. ‘Oxford and AstraZeneca.

Speed, vaccines and variants

The atmosphere in Europe could be described between euphoria and prudence. The UK is an observatory of “real experimentation”. Vaccines and variants play two races against the clock.

London has been effective in rapidly vaccinating vulnerable people and avoiding hospital saturation and the resulting human cost.

However, the coronavirus has an advantage in the possibility of spreading. In this direction, the lack of collective immunity, allows the virus to recirculate and create variants. This removes the prospect of this “immune shield”. As this happens, and according to warnings from the World Health Organization, the prospect of ending the outbreak and going back to the old life is shifting.

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