Medical staff administer a vaccine against COVID-19 to colleagues on Sunday in a faculty hospital in Nitra, Slovakia. AFP
A swath of EU nations began vaccinating their most vulnerable groups on December 27 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 December 26, ready for distribution to retirement homes and care staff.
The approval and roll-out of vaccines has boosted hopes that next year could bring a respite from the pandemic, which has killed more than 1.7 million people since emerging in China late last year.
However, in a video message ahead of the first International Day of Epidemic Preparedness on December 27, World Health Organisation (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said it was time to learn the lessons from the Covid-19 pandemic.
Tedros said: “History tells us that this will not be the last pandemic, and epidemics are a fact of life.
“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,” he said.
Vaccinations in all 27 EU countries had been set to begin from December 27, after regulators approved the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine on December 21.
But some countries began on December 26 – 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 only be reached 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 December 26 and millions waking to tougher restrictions in Britain.
France’s health minister Olivier Veran would not rule out a third lockdown if authorities decide it’s 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 December 26, though the patients were not seriously ill, according to the Madrid regional government’s deputy health chief Antonio Zapatero, who said “there is no need for alarm”.
Canada reported on December 26 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 other people.
The new strain, which experts fear is more contagious, prompted more than 50 countries to impose travel restrictions on the UK.
In Asia, Communist Party of China leadership issued a statement hailing the “extremely extraordinary glory” of its handling of the virus, reported the official Xinhua News Agency.
Japanese capital Tokyo reported a record 949 new daily cases, while Thailand has seen a new outbreak linked to a seafood market near Bangkok infect almost 1,500 people.
