CALLED WOLFGANG? HAVE A JAB!

MORE than four in five French people are unhappy about the sluggish roll-out of the country’s Covid vaccination campaign.

A survey by Le Figaro newspaper reveals widespread disquiet over President Emmanuel Macron’s handling of the programme, with 81 per cent of the population dissatisfied with progress.

Latest figures reveal that France has given the jab to 388,730 people – just 0.58 per cent of the populace. Across the EU as a whole, only 1.25 people per 100 have received a vaccine, compared to 5.42 per 100 in the UK. The UK vaccinated as many people last Thursday alone as France had in total.

Germany’s roll-out has also lagged behind expectations with a shortage of doses. Only 1.15 Germans per 100 have received a dose. Some German regions have been forced to guess people’s ages from their first name because of local privacy laws. Authorities in Lower Saxony wanted to send letters to all residents aged over 80 to invite them to make vaccination appointments. But they have been blocked from using official records and have resorted to trying to guess people’s ages.

Officials have settled on sending out letters to people called Wolfgang or Waltraud because they are more common names among the older generation. Politicians in Germany have accused the EU Commission of bungling the procurement programme. European countries have been forced to play catch up after a slow initial roll-out of the vaccine.

Most countries are only able to rely on the Pfizer vaccine and a few tens of thousands of doses of the Moderna vaccine that has just been approved by the European Medicines Agency.