PARIS (AP) – The first few hours it took to give the first coronavirus vaccines to 14 residents of the John XXIII nursing home, named after a pope and not far from the birthplace in the east of France, by vaccine pioneer Louis Pasteur, took weeks to prepare.
The director of the house, Samuel Robbe, had to make his way through a dense 61-page vaccination protocol, one of several strong guides of the French government which exhaustively details how to proceed, up to the number of times (10) each vaccine vial must be turned upside down to mix its contents.
“Delicately,” the pamphlet states. “Don’t shake.”
While France is trying to figure out why its vaccination campaign started so slowly, the answer lies in part in bureaucracy forests and the decision to prioritize vulnerable seniors in residences. They are perhaps the most difficult group to start, due to the need for informed consent and the difficulties in explaining the complex science of rapid vaccines.
Claude Fouet, still full of vim and good humor at the age of 89, but with memory problems, was one of the first to accept the vaccine at his nursing home in Paris. But in the conversation, it becomes apparent that his understanding of the pandemic is poor. Eve Guillaume, the house’s director, had to remind Fouet that in April she survived her own brush with the virus that killed more than 66,000 people in France.
“I was in the hospital,” Fouet slowly recalled, “with a dead person by my side.”
Guillaume says getting the consent of its 64 residents (or their guardians and families when they are not fit enough to remember) is proving to be the most labor-intensive part of their preparations to start vaccinations by the end of ‘this month. Some families have said no, and some want to wait a few months to see how vaccines develop before deciding.
“You can’t count on nursing homes to go fast,” he says. “It means, every time, starting a conversation with the families, talking to the tutors, taking collegiate steps to reach the right decision. And that takes time. “
In the house of John XXIII, between the fortified city of Besançon and the birthplace of Pasteur in Dole, Robbe has had a similar experience.
Following the European Union’s ecological use of the BioNTech-Pfizer vaccine in December, Robbe says it took two weeks to put all the pieces together for 14 residents to be vaccinated this week, just a fraction of his total of more than 100.
Getting consent was the biggest hurdle for a doctor and psychologist going from room to room to discuss vaccinations, he says. Residents ’families were given a week during the December holidays to approve or reject them, a decision that had to be unanimous on the part of immediate relatives.
When a woman’s daughter said yes, but her son said no, she was not shot because “they can turn against us and say, ‘I never agreed.’ , Robbe explained. “There is no consensus, we do not vaccinate.”
Just by cutting corners and getting residents to agree in a timely manner, the process could be faster, he says.
“My friends say,‘ What is this circus? The Germans have already vaccinated 80,000 people and we have not vaccinated anyone, “he says.” But we do not share the same stories. When you propose a vaccine to the Germans, they all want to be inoculated. “People are more skeptical. They have to understand. They need explanations and to be reassured.”
France has given priority to nursing homes because they have seen almost a third of their deaths. But his first vaccination on Dec. 27 of a 78-year-old woman in a long-term focus, it was quickly demonstrated that it was just the symbolic launch of a deployment that the government never wanted to start properly before this week.
Only on Monday, as planned, authorities launched an online platform where health workers must register all vaccines and prove that the inoculated obtained a mandatory consultation with a doctor, which added to the bureaucracy.
In some countries that are moving faster than France, the bureaucracy is looser. In Britain, where nearly 1.5 million have been inoculated and are expected to offer beatings to all nursing home residents by the end of January, those who can consent to them only need to sign a single page. which provides basic information on the benefits and possible side effects.
No interviews with doctors in Spain are needed. He started getting vaccinated the same day as France, but administered 82,000 doses in the first nine days, while France only administered a couple of thousand.
Germany, like France, also requires a meeting with a doctor and prioritizes vaccines for nursing home residents, but it is most quickly achieved through mobile equipment. With the current rate of about 30,000 vaccines a day, Germany would need at least six years to inoculate its 69 million adults. But while the German government faces criticism for the perceived slow onset, France began an even slower start, at least in numerical terms, but has pledged to reach a million people by the end. January.
Other countries have amassed a larger number by offering photographs to wider cross-sections of people who are easier to reach and can reach for appointments. The vast majority of the more than 400,000 doses administered in Italy have been intended for health personnel.
Lucile Grillon, who manages three nursing homes in the east of France, says the many hours spent preparing vaccines for 50 residents and staff who received word-of-mouths on Friday were long gone. He worked during the holidays to prepare.
“We can’t wait until we have the doses in the fridge to realize we’re not ready to be vaccinated and then we have to throw away the doses and say,‘ rats! I didn’t think about it, “he adds.” The doses are too precious. “
“It takes us two months to get ready for the flu shots. Here we have been asked to set records and vaccinate against COVID in less than 15 days, “he says.” I don’t see how we could have gone faster. “
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The writers of the Associated Press, Pan Pylas in London, Nicole Winfield in Rome, Ciaran Giles in Madrid and Kirsten Grieshaber in Berlin collaborated.
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