Regional government across Spain, including some governed by socialists, have decided to reject the Central Government's Advice and go ahead with AstraZeneca.
Regional governments across Spain, including some governed by socialists too, have decided to reject the Central Government’s original advice and go ahead with AstraZeneca.
The Central Government wanted to start mixing different brands of anti-virus; i.e., first jab with AstraZeneca and the second one with Pfizer, despite recommendations from the EU medical experts not to do so.
Now, after a meeting with all the regional health ministers, the Central Government has buckled and said that those who have had an AstraZeneca jab can opt for a second one, as long as they sign a document saying that it is their decision and under their own responsibility.
Mainly, we’re talking about around two million essential-services staff under 60 who received an AstraZeneca jab three months ago and are waiting for the second one. Just in the province of Granada alone there are 29,613 such people waiting for this decision.
The Andalusian PM, Juanma Morena, quickly announced on his official Twitter account that “the decision is taken and we’re going ahead with AstraZeneca for the under 60s on a voluntary basis.” He concluded, “it seems to be the most reasonable decision, backed by scientific bodies.”
The Minister of Public Health for the Central Government, Sra Darias, really didn’t expect a full-blown rebellion at the meeting of health ministers, but that is what she got because none of them lent much credence to the research (CombivacS) that Madrid had commissioned, which supported a vaccine ‘cocktail’ of different drugs.
The ministers rebuked Sra. Darias for trying to force Pfizer on everybody based on a study tested on just 600 volunteer (in reality, the number was even less, 400 because 200 were given no second jab, whatsoever). This rejection of the study was not only because it was based on such a ridiculously small volunteer basis, but also because it was carried out and concluded in only two weeks, given no time for secondary effects to appear.
The regions with PP administrations (Madrid, Galicia, Castilla & Léon and Andalucía) threatened to go ahead and give the AstraZeneca to absolutely everybody who requested it. In the case of Andalucía, they have a quarter of a million doses sitting gathering dust whilst the Central Government dithered. Even the regional governments under the same party as the Central Government suggested that each region should be able to make its own decision over this, which brought about the collapse of Minister Darias’s posture.
(News: Spain)