These are Belgium, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, Switzerland, the French Caribbean island of Guadeloupe, and the UK.
This seems be old news. There are cases in Sweden too.
That sucks. Whatever my general opinion of Putin’s government, and the fact that Sputnik’s touted efficacy didn’t pass the smell test, a large supply of even a mediocre vaccine would be an incontrovertible global good.
Health authorities are very concerned. But unfortunately, this refusal started a small war with accusations of political and ideological use by the health regulatory agency.
These statements don´t hold water as the very same agency itself gave the green light to the Chinese vaccine Coronavac, which was used as an object of propaganda by Mr. João Dória, governor of São Paulo and political opponent of President Bolsonaro.
I also wish we could get as many vaccines as possible, but not at the expense of health security. Unfortunately the Government has refused to buy several different “flavors” of vaccines last year and now we are on the verge of a vaccine shortage.
I just can’t, some days.
Mr. Queiroga, Minister of Health, said the government is intending to launch a massive COVID testing program.
The newspapers are saying that General Ramos had to take the vaccine in secret so as not to offend the president.
Communism!
Can we all aspire to be at least as progressive as West Virginia?
Ordinarily, this would be greeted with guffaws and rolled eyes, but for whatever reason, my home state has handled Covid far better than I expected and better than most other states have. Mountaineer Pride! (For once, being able to say that non-sarcastically is actually pretty damn nice!)
Vaccination variables
The tabloid Ilta-Sanomat reports that the rate of coronavirus vaccination coverage in the population right now varies from 16.4 percent in Liminka in the North Ostrobothnia region to 50.2 percent in Puumala, South Savo.
The paper points to several reasons why there is such wide variation.
One prime cause is that is some municipalities, the Pfizer vaccine cannot be used due to the lack of deep-freeze facilities. On the other hand, the availability of healthcare personnel to run the vaccination programme has been a challenge.
The very low level of vaccination coverage in Liminka is largely due to the age structure, of the local population. Finland is vaccinating older age groups, and risk groups first. The population of Liminka is exceptionally young, even by general European standards. Forty percent of residents in the municipality are under 18 years of age.
Puumala’s lead is also affected by the local age structure
“There are a lot of elderly people and people at risk in Puumala who have been vaccinated,” says Hans Gärdström, pandemic services manager for the South Savo Social and Health Care Authority, “We also have a vaccination-friendly community here.”
Tampere’s Aamulehti carries a report on efforts within the EU to create a common coronavirus certificate by this summer.
The paper notes that the issuance of a digital certificate would be the responsibility of the national authorities in each EU country.
Finland will introduce a vaccination certificate in May. The Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, the National Institute for Health and Welfare and the national insurance institute Kela officially confirmed on Tuesday that a national coronavirus vaccination certificate will be introduced in Finland at the end of May.
The digital certificate will be available through the online “My Kanta” health information service.
BTW Puumala translate to something like place of cougars.
This should be a thing of the past!
Whole the Verfassungsschutz has a terrible track record on addressing right wing movementsand groups, this seems slowly to change.
The problem with the Querdenker “movement” is that it is a contact point for all kinds of assholes, a sort of intersectional bullshit “movement”. All political factions can interact here, and extremists from the right as from the far left have mixed and meddled with everyone else. The far left has mainly pulled out, IMO, in mid-2020, as it became clear that right wing groups successfully hijacked the “discourse” within the “movement”.
Still, from misinformed academics with a tendency to naturopathic ideas over anthroposophically inclined self-idenfied “liberals” to economically motivated “liberals” and, of course, to Reichsbürger cranks, everyone has woes and worries about the pandemic measures, and finds a spot in the local and regional groups.
That the extremist part of the loose groups now is officially of concern to the authorities could maybe put off some people who do have worries and “just went along” with the demonstrations.
But I doubt it, somehow. We had the same situation with Pegida, and for far to long, it drew crowds to the street. Basically, in the last decade, we are observing a slow-moving right-wing shift in Germany, which already brought us neofascists in parliament. Other countries have made faster shifts, like Poland, Hungary, Findland…
Bottom line: the stress the pandemic puts on the society is an additional stress test for German democracy.
Can we institute a corporate death penalty, already?
Contractor that ruined 15M doses of J&J vaccine is holding up vaccine to India | Ars Technica
That all sounds very familiar.
