Covid-19: V-Day in the EU, which begins vaccination with the elderly

Healthcare worker Vladimir Krcmery receives first dose of Pfizer / BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine from Slovakia, in Nitra, December 26, 2020. REUTERS - Radovan Stoklasa

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4 min

The vaccination campaign against Covid-19 officially begins this Sunday, December 27 in the 27 countries of the European Union.

The doses of the first authorized vaccine, that of Pfizer / BioNTech, were sent under guard in the countries and it is first of all to frail people and caregivers that they will be administered.

While Germany vaccinated first on Saturday, overview of this start in the EU of this sign of hope.

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It is a centenary who was the first

vaccinated in Germany

, and that from Saturday, December 26 in the evening.

A few hours ahead of

its neighbors

, the country began its vaccination campaign in a retirement home.

Edith Kwoizalla, 101, is the first to have benefited from the new anti-Covid-19 vaccine.

A retirement home for the elderly in Halberstadt in Saxony-Anhalt has decided not to wait for the official start of the vaccination campaign on Sunday.

Apart from the centenary, around forty residents of the home and ten members of the nursing staff received the

Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine on

Saturday, indicates our correspondent in Berlin,

Pascal Thibaut.

Several tens of thousands of doses were delivered to the regional health authorities who distributed them locally.

Residents of nursing homes, seniors over 80 and nursing staff will be the first to be immunized in Germany.

Mobile teams will go to the homes.

In Berlin, for example, nursing staff will have to go to one of the six vaccination centers set up.

The Minister of Health spoke on Saturday, December 26 of a Christmas gift, but also stressed that the vaccination campaign will take time.

Until the end of March,

Jens Spahn

expects 12 million doses to vaccinate six million people, a double injection being necessary.

On the other hand, the minister promises a return to normalcy next fall.

An awareness campaign will be launched.

Two-thirds of Germans want to be vaccinated but some of them prefer to wait a bit.

In France, nursing homes first, then other people at risk in May

In France, vaccinations also begin this Sunday in

 two establishments for the elderly.

 An almost symbolic launch but which allows to end the year on a note of hope: 2020 will not only be the year in which more than 400,000 people died due to Covid-19 in the European Union, but also the one that saw the beginning of a solution to the pandemic.

However, it will be necessary to wait until May so that the 22 million French people most at risk can have access to the vaccine, according to the president of the Scientific Council Jean-François Delfraissy.

The

Spain

also launches its campaign tomorrow at 8:30 am in a small town in central Somalia, while in

Italy, the first bites take place at the Spallanzani Hospital in Rome

.

Greece, Hungary, Cyprus, Austria, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Croatia… almost all countries are there.

At the moment, only the vaccine from Pfizer / BioNTech is authorized by the European Health Authority, although it poses a logistical challenge, since it must be stored at -70 ° C.

But several other vaccines are expected to follow soon, and

Brussels has already ordered

.

►Also read

: United Kingdom: the new variant of Covid-19 would be more contagious but not more dangerous

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  • European Union

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