Vaccine Comparison Shopping Lets Covid Win
France's slow-motion rollout of AstraZeneca doses has lessons for Europe and the U.S. too.
Artist Luke Jerram's glass sculpture of the Oxford-AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine.
Photographer: Finnbarr Webster/Getty Images
The scientist in charge of France’s vaccine rollout, Alain Fischer, must sometimes feel like Sisyphus forever rolling his boulder up the hill. After months of patiently working to win over a doubting public’s acceptance of the groundbreaking mRNA vaccines from Pfizer Inc. and Moderna Inc., he’s now fighting to convince French doctors to offer AstraZeneca Plc’s more traditional shot to their patients.
Resistance runs deep even as doses pile up, more data about efficacy emerges and President Emmanuel Macron along with other European Union leaders frantically tries to speed up inoculations.