Tactical shift: Europe seeks vaccine 'overdrive' to catch up - Associated Press

drive-thru inoculation centers and the COVID-19 shots given out in American grocery store pharmacies drew bafflement in Germany — that is, until the country’s own plans for orderly vaccine appointments at specialized centers were overwhelmed by the demand.

With its stockpile of AstraZeneca vaccine doses set to top 2 million, Germany is looking to make more people eligible for the shots that have so far been restricted to a fraction of the population: people in the top priority group who are under 65.

France changed tactics earlier this week, allowing some people over 65 to get the AstraZeneca vaccine after initially restricting its use to younger people.

Health Minister Olivier Veran said the shot would soon also be available to people over 50 with health problems that make them more vulnerable.

France, which at more than 87,000 dead has among the highest coronavirus tolls in Europe, had used only 25% of the 1.6 million AstraZeneca vaccines it has received as of Tuesday.

Yet data this week from England’s mass vaccination program showed that both AstraZeneca and the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine were around 60% effective in preventing symptomatic COVID-19 in people over 70 after just a single dose.

The analysis released by Public Health England, which hasn’t been peer reviewed yet, also showed that both vaccines were about 80% effective in preventing hospitalizations among people over 80.

Belgium and Italy, too, are loosening their age restrictions for the AstraZeneca vaccine as they scramble to confront a looming third spike in COVID-19 cases driven by more contagious virus variants.

Rather than hold back doses for the required second shot, Danish health authorities followed the British model of using all available vaccines as they came in — an approach more EU countries are now considering.

And all of Denmark’s 6 million people have digital health records linked to a single ID number, allowing authorities to pinpoint exactly who is eligible for vaccination and reach out to them directly.