FRANCE followed Germany in begging citizens to get the Oxford Covid vaccine today – as the EU faces a massive shortfall in doses.
The French government admitted the AstraZeneca jab has an “image deficit” in the country weeks after Emmanuel Macron falsely claimed it doesn’t work.
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France’s health ministry conceded today there had been “feeble” uptake of the life-saving Oxford vaccine.
Real-world results show it is 94 per cent effective at reducing hospital admissions for Covid.
But only 107,000 people in France have had a dose so far – and authorities said they want to “rehabilitate” its image.
EU politicians spreading misinformation about the effectiveness of the jab has led many Europeans to believe it doesn’t work.
Mr Macron himself claimed the jab was “quasi-ineffective on people older than 65, some say those 60 years or older”.
EU Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen added to doubts by accusing Britain of cutting corners over “safety and efficacy” safeguards.
Yesterday Chancellor Angela Merkel warned that Germany cannot afford “ups and downs” as the country is gripped by a third Covid wave.
She urged Germans to have the Oxford jab after people skipped appointments, leaving thousands of doses unused.
Meanwhile Germany’s biggest newspaper said the rest of Europe was looking on in “envy” at the UK’s vaccine rollout success.
A front-page article in Bild said the UK’s programme had allowed Boris Johnson to promise a brighter future while Germany is “stuck in lockdown”.
Mrs Merkel and EU counterparts were left squirming by a headline that reads: “Dear Brits, we envy you!”
The UK has jabbed 18.6million people so far – around 28 per cent of the population.
At the same time whole of the EU has managed just 28million, or around 6 per cent of people.
Mrs von der Leyen has also pleaded with people to take the Oxford jab.
The 62-year-old said she would happily have it herself – although Belgium where she lives only approved it for under-55s.
Last month, she was involved in a row with AstraZeneca over missing shipments of the vaccine to the EU.
The jab shortfall is set to continue over the next few months, with up to 90 million doses missing from shipments to the EU in the second quarter of 2021.
An EU official said that AstraZeneca warned it may only deliver half of the 180 million doses it had promised between April and June.
Supplies have been slowed due to delays at a factory in Belgium.
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Germany is under pressure to speed up its vaccine rollout as the country is inoculating fewer than 900,000 people a week and already has nearly a million unused Oxford-AstraZeneca doses, reported The Times.
Scaremongering about the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine has resulted in some people flatly refusing the jab in countries including Germany and France.
Many are skipping their appointments after finding out they would receive the Oxford vaccine, as they instead want the Pfizer jab – causing further issues in their shambolic vaccination drives.
It comes as new findings show just one shot of the British-made Covid jab slashes older people’s risk of being taken to hospital with the disease by 94 per cent, suggesting it is actually slightly more effective than the Pfizer vaccine after a single dose.
It is the first time the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine has been proven to protect over-65s against the disease.
German leaders have launched a public relations push to reassure the public that the AstraZeneca shot, developed at Britain’s Oxford University, works.
“The vaccine from AstraZeneca is both safe and highly effective,” Mrs Merkel’s chief spokesman Steffen Seibert tweeted.
“The vaccine can save lives.”
AstraZeneca says that the reported side effects are in line with observations from its clinical trials.
The Paul Ehrlich Institute has called the vaccine highly effective and described reactions to it as short-lived, reported Reuters.
France’s government has said it wants to “rehabilitate” the AstraZeneca vaccine as EU leaders try to back pedal on their misgivings about the jab which have led to low uptake.
‘We will use all possible levers to rehabilitate the vaccine,’ the French health ministry said, according to Le Telegramme, days after Scottish data proved the AstraZeneca jab DOES work well.
Amid Merkel’s desire to get her country back on track, a vaccine priority reshuffle has seen teachers leapfrog up the list as teaching staff have now been promoted to the second-highest priority ranking for vaccines.
They join other priority groups including GPs, people with dementia, chronic illnesses or learning disabilities and the over-75s.
This means that the first teachers in the eastern state of Thuringia could receive the Oxford-AstraZeneca jab by the end of the week because the vaccine is not approved for use in over-65s.
In other regions such as Hamburg they will have to wait for more than a month as authorities struggle to get through vaccinating the over-80s, frontline hospital staff and people with serious medical conditions.
Germany has administered five million vaccine doses so far, or around six for every 100 residents, putting it well behind countries like Israel, Britain or the United States that have more aggressive campaigns.
Most are of the Pfizer vaccine, which was developed by Germany’s BioNTech, and have been given so far to the elderly and infirm.
Of the 1.5 million AstraZeneca shots due to have been delivered by the end of last week, only 187,000 have been used so far, according to figures from the health ministry and Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases.
In the UK, almost 18 million first vaccine doses have been given, meaning around 26 in 100 people has been vaccinated so far.
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German health minister Jens Spahn is said to be “fighting for his career” after the poor vaccine roll-out across the country and failing to deliver a promised rapid-testing scheme.
Spahn has seen his approval rating slide five points in a month amid the vaccination chaos and a grinding two-month lockdown.
German newspaper Bild is now describing Spahn as a “ministerial flop”, and the 40-year-old – who was seen as an outside contender in the race to succeed Merkel as chancellor later this year – is said to be “frustrated” and “bewildered” by issues he is facing.