Coronavirus: Europe vaccine rollout as new virus strain spreads fear

A swath of EU nations begin vaccinating their most vulnerable groups on Sunday as a more contagious virus variant spread.

A military convoy carrying the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine leaves a warehouse in Cabanillas del Campo, Spain, on Saturday. Picture: AFP

EU nations were to begin vaccinating their most vulnerable groups on Sunday as a reputedly more contagious coronavirus variant spread internationally and the WHO warned that the current pandemic would not be the last.

First doses of the Pfizer-­BioNTech vaccine arrived in EU countries including hard-hit Italy, Spain and France on Saturday, ready for distribution to retirement homes and care staff.

The approval and rollout of vaccines has boosted hopes that 2021 could bring a respite from the pandemic, which has killed more than 1.7 million since emerging in China late last year.

However, in a video message ahead of the first International Day of Epidemic Preparedness on Sunday, World Health Organisation chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said it was time to learn the lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic.

“History tells us that this will not be the last pandemic, and epidemics are a fact of life,” Dr Tedros said. “Any efforts to improve human health are doomed unless they address the critical interface between humans and animals, and the existential threat of climate change that’s making our earth less habitable.”

Vaccinations in all 27 EU countries had been set to begin from Sunday, after regulators approved the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine on December 21.

But some countries began on Saturday: a 101-year-old woman in a care home became the first person in Germany to be inoculated, and the first jabs were also handed out in Hungary and Slovakia. The three EU countries joined China, Russia and Britain, Canada, the US, Switzerland, Serbia, Singapore and Saudi Arabia, which have also begun their vaccination campaigns.

“We’ll get our freedom back, we’ll be able to embrace again,” Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio said as he urged his countrymen to get the shot. But polls show only 57 per cent of Italians intend to get the jab, whereas scientists estimate herd immunity can be reached only if 75 to 80 per cent have it.

Flare-ups of the virus continue to force nations to toughen restrictions, with Austria beginning a third national lockdown on Saturday and millions waking to tougher restrictions in Britain.

France’s Health Minister, Olivier Veran, would not rule out a third lockdown if authorities decided it was necessary to tamp down infections.

Jitters also remained over a new strain that has emerged in Britain and reached several other European countries such as France and Sweden, as well as Japan. Four cases were confirmed in Madrid on Saturday, though the patients were not seriously ill. Canada reported that it had detected two variant cases in the province of Ontario — a couple who had not travelled recently nor had high-risk contacts with others. The new strain, which experts fear is more contagious, prompted more than 50 countries to impose travel restrictions on Britain.

In Asia, China’s communist leadership issued a statement hailing the “extremely extraordinary glory” of its handling of the virus, state news agency Xinhua reported.

Tokyo reported a record 949 new daily cases, while a new outbreak linked to a seafood market near Bangkok infected almost 1500 people.

Australian golf great Greg Norman became the latest well-known name to quarantine, saying on Saturday he was isolating at home after spending Christmas Day in the hospital with COVID-19 symptoms.

Across the world, people were still being urged to respect social distancing guidelines.

Swiss Health Minister Alain Berset noted his country had put the emphasis on personal responsibility, but admitted the government blundered in easing restrictions too far, resulting in some of Europe’s fiercest infection rates during the second wave of the pandemic.

In authoritarian post-Soviet Turkmenistan, where the government says no coronavirus cases have been detected, President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov claimed that licorice root could cure COVID-19. Without citing any scientific evidence, the former dentist claimed that “licorice stops the coronavirus from developing”.

AFP