Hamburg, Germany – The United States has a long way to go coronavirus vaccine distribution, but it is well ahead of most other countries. This includes Germany, where many have chosen to wait one vaccine over another, instead of getting the most available shot.
The US has 60 million doses of Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine ready to roll out by the time FDA clearance According to CBS News correspondent Chris Livesay, this vaccine is now available in Germany, where COVID-19 cases have increased recently. The hardest part has been getting the Germans to take it.
At Germany’s largest vaccination center in Hamburg, surgeon Johannes, 35, told us he had wanted to receive his first shot, so he could stop worrying so much about the risks of carrying the disease from from the hospital to his partner. and her newborn son.
But now that the offer to make a shot of the AstraZeneca vaccine has really arrived, Johannes admits that he is “a little scared.”
“I thought I was getting the [Pfizer]-BioNTech vaccine, but now I feel like there ‘s the decision I don’t have, “he said.” I was really disappointed. “
It is a scene that takes place in the most powerful country in Europe. Germany has already received more than 1.4 million doses of the drug AstraZeneca and has been distributed to vaccination centers across the country such as Hamburg.
But polls suggest that about half of Germans don’t really want it.
More generally, the European Union, which organized the purchase of all doses of vaccine collectively for its 27 member states, achieved a whopping 400 million doses of the vaccine developed in the United Kingdom.
Clinical trials suggested that the AstraZeneca formula was between 60% and 90% effective in preventing symptomatic COVID-19 infection, less than the 95% efficacy that Pfizer / BioNTech reported in its trials.
At the time, Germany’s national vaccine committee refused to approve AstraZeneca for people over 65, alleging a lack of data from trials showing it worked well in those seniors.
The reaction was swift, significant, and even spread outside of Germany to other major European countries, including France, where the vaccine was only recently authorized for use in the elderly. Germany has not yet approved it for all adults, but the government is currently reviewing the restriction for those over 65 and top doctors in the country have applied for permission for all over 18s.
However, many Germans simply do not trust the AstraZeneca vaccine, despite new real UK data suggesting that the shot is really more effective than the Pfizer vaccine in hospitalization prevention: an impressive breakthrough, according to immunologist Thomas Jacobs.
“We don’t have the best and the second best; we have two very effective and safe vaccines,” he told CBS News, referring to drugs approved for use in Germany. He said there could be a bit of “simple snobbery” when it comes to Germans turning their noses at the British-developed vaccine in favor of the Pfizer vaccine, which, after all, was made in part by the German firm BioNTech.
The director of the Hamburg vaccination center said it was clearly a first world problem.
“You know, it’s people, you want the best,” Dirk Heinrich told Livesay. “You want to drive a Porsche if you get the chance, instead of another car.”
With many Germans refusing the AstraZeneca’s “other car,” most of the doses already in Germany are in the cold room.
Compared to almost 15.3% of Americans who have received the first vaccine, less than 6% of Germans have had theirs.
But, as Johannes told CBS News, “we all want to get back to normal life,” and changing perceptions of the AstraZeneca vaccine in Germany could help increase the growing number of shots fired there and in Europe.
Chancellor Angela Merkel has now come out to defend the AstraZeneca vaccine. He was due to meet on Wednesday with state leaders from all over Germany to discuss the next phase of the pandemic response in the country, where life is still largely closed.