Germany, Hungary administer vaccine ahead of EU rollout
FRANKFURT, GERMANY— Germany and Hungary began administering their first coronavirus vaccine shots on Saturday only hours after receiving their first shipments, upsetting the EuropeanUnion’s plans for a coordinated rollout on Sunday across the bloc’s 27 nations.
“Every day that we wait is one day too many,” said Tobias Krueger, the operator of a nursing homewhere immunizations began Saturday in Halberstadt, in the northeast German region of Saxony-Anhalt.
The first person at the home to be immunized with the Pfizer- BioNTech vaccine was 101-year- old Edith Kwoizalla, the dpa news agency reported.
Krueger said 40 of the home’s 59 residentswanted
theimmunization shot along with 10 of around 40 workers. He was among those immunizedbutadded,“Ialso understand the concerns.”
In Hungary, health care workers were vaccinated at theSouthernPestCentralHospitalinBudapest, whileauthoritiesinSlovakiaalsoplannedto begin administering their first doses on Saturday evening.
The first shipments of the vaccine arrived at hospitals across the EU in super-cold containers late Friday and earlySaturdayafterbeingsent fromamanufacturing center inBelgium before Christmas.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen released a video celebrating the vaccine rollout, calling it “a touching moment of unity.”
“Today, we start turning the page on a difficult year. The COVID-19 vaccine has been delivered to all EU countries. Vaccination will begin tomorrow across the EU,” she said.
The rollout marks a momentof hope for a region that includes some of the world’s earliest and worsthit virus hot spots — Italy and Spain — and others like the Czech Republic, which were spared early on only to see their health care systems near their breaking point in the fall.