Europeans U-turn on ‘effective and safe’ jab – as France locks down again

THE Oxford/AstraZeneca jab was due to start going back into arms across Europe today after a series of U-turns by nations.

Within hours of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) backing the ‘safe and effective’ vaccine yesterday, the likes of Germany, Spain and Italy said they would return to using it having suspended operations earlier this week.

France joined them, just as it announced it was putting Paris and 15 other regions back into a month-long lockdown to combat rising Covid case numbers.

Bulgaria, one of the first to stop using the jab, Latvia, Lithuania and Slovenia all also followed the EMA advice, which was backed by the World Health Organisation. Portugal and the Netherlands will follow suit next week.

Sweden said it needed ‘a few days’ to decide whether to restart its programme while Ireland will make a decision today. Ireland’s deputy chief medical officer Ronan Glynn said he believed the pause would boost confidence in the jab, amid concerns about blood clots.

‘I would hope that in time it will be seen to have protected the vaccination programme, to protect confidence in the vaccination programme, and in time will be seen to have been the right thing to do,’ he told a press briefing.

French prime minister Jean Castex said he would be having the jab today, as he admitted intensive care units were starting to buckle under the weight of new cases.

Northern regions badly hit, including the Ile-de-France area around Paris, will start a new four- week lockdown from midnight tonight, but schools will remain open and confinement will be less strict than in previous nationwide lockdowns. Mr Castex also announced that the nationwide curfew will be moved back by an hour to start at 7pm local time, rather than 6pm.

Essential goods shops, including bookstores and music outlets, will remain open and outdoor activities will be allowed in a six-mile radius from home, but inter-regional travel is banned. ‘We are adopting a third way, a way that should allow braking [of the epidemic] without locking [people] up,’ Mr Castex said in a televised address.

The measures could be extended to other regions if necessary, he warned.

President Emmanuel Macron was determined not to lock down again, but a faltering vaccine rollout and spread of highly contagious variants forced a shift in his strategy.