More than a million people, in suspense by the second dose of AstraZeneca: "We are in purgatory"

Isabel Solís, teacher at the Carlos I de Dos Hermanas public school in Seville.PACO PUENTES / EL PAÍS

On Tuesday, May 4, 84 days will have passed since the first doses of AstraZeneca were injected in Spain. 12 weeks. It is the maximum limit that the technical sheet of the vaccine marks between the first and the second injection. The Public Health Commission, made up of the Ministry of Health and the autonomous communities, meets this Friday to decide what to do with more than a million people under 60 who received a dose and who were left in uncertainty when the authorities decided apply this drug only to sexagenarians.

Those affected are the essential professionals who began to receive the doses from February 9. There were almost a million when the ministry decided the first suspension of the vaccine, on March 15. When vaccination was resumed, it continued to be administered to this group in parallel to the general population up to 65 years of age. But on April 7, when 2.1 million people had received the puncture, a new stop came. And those under 60 years of age were left in limbo (the ministry does not clarify the exact number). Health decided that the vaccine would only be administered to people between 60 and 69, since thromboses with thrombocytopenia, very rare side effects, had mostly occurred in younger people.

Essential workers who had not received the injection were left without it, and those who did, not knowing what would happen to their second dose. The Ministry of Health assured that it would study the situation to decide whether to administer a second AstraZeneca, another vaccine or if they were left with only one. In Germany and France they are receiving second doses of Pfizer; in the UK and Italy, they maintain AstraZeneca. Spain has been letting time pass without making a decision, despite the fact that the European Medicines Agency recommended inoculating AstraZeneca to those who had already received the first puncture.

On the 19th, the Carlos III Health Institute began a study to verify the effectiveness and safety of combining two drugs and make a decision based on that evidence. But last Monday, not even all the necessary volunteers had been recruited, according to Fernando Simón, director of the Center for the Coordination of Health Alerts and Emergencies.

The Ministry of Health prefers to wait for the study, although it allows more time than indicated on the drug file between the two doses, according to its owner, Carolina Darias, said on Wednesday.

But the decision will have to be debated this Friday with the communities, while those affected remain without news of their future.

They are teachers, policemen, soldiers, prison and health officials who were not on the front line who live this moment with “uncertainty”, as most of them relate.

These are five of them:

"It gives the feeling that they are hitting the blind"

Carlos Prieto, a 41-year-old national policeman, and a member of the Unified Police Union, assures that he will trust what the health authorities recommend, but denounces the uncertainty in which essential workers are mired who, like him, received the first dose of AstraZeneca and subsequently they have seen a continuous sway of criteria.

"I would take the second dose of AstraZeneca without problems, but if they finally decide to combine two drugs, what I would like is for it to be after a serious study that guarantees safety conditions, which is the important thing," he says.

Carlos Prieto, national policeman and trade unionist from SUP.KIKE PARA

“Health criteria have been contradictory: first it was recommended only to those under 60 years of age, then only to older people;

If you add this to the fact that they have not reunited us, they have not given us explanations, we do not know if there is a stockpile of second doses for us… It gives the feeling that they are giving a blind blow ”, ditch.

"Complaining seems disrespectful to those who do not have a vaccine"

Professor Beatriz Rodríguez (Valladolid, 27 years old) insists that she fully trusts vaccines, but that the contradictions about her administration have generated "uncertainty" in the school where she works. The teacher feels "lucky" to have been immunized and has been forced not to protest over trifles when there are many members of the education sector, such as janitors or other staff, who have not received the puncture. Rodríguez comments that the news about AstraZeneca caused, more or less, the vaccinated to attribute different ailments to the dose: "Let's see if this leg pain is going to be because of that ...". Neither she nor her colleagues know anything about the second round. The Valladolid woman trusts that she will arrive soon to abandon the strict precautions with which she lives, "especially for others."Until then, he will not complain: "It seems to me a lack of respect towards those who do not have it."

Beatriz Rodríguez, a teacher vaccinated with the first dose of AstraZeneca, this Thursday in Valladolid. Javier Álvarez / EL PAÍS

"With vaccines everything has gone from black to gray"

Daniel Barrachina, 47, is a Valencian pharmacist who has been standing by the counter since the beginning of the pandemic.

"We are the first link in the health chain and a point of reference for the neighborhood," he says.

Especially when the health centers were closed tight.

He acknowledges that people have come to the pharmacy who knew they were positive and have taken his medication while they were waiting on the street.

He likes his profession, it is vocational, but he confesses that he has been afraid of a possible contagion because closing the business, which he manages with his wife, would be a severe economic setback after moving to a much larger place.

Daniel Barrachina, 47-year-old pharmacist from Valencia, Monica Torres

In mid-March they administered the first dose of AstraZeneca and the second would theoretically be due on May 31, but he does not know if he will receive it.

“We are in purgatory and what makes my head explode is that there was a national vaccination protocol, which is changed and changed again.

It is a very Berlanguian situation ”, he adds despite feeling lucky because there are hundreds of his colleagues who have not yet received even the first injection, he reproaches the Generalitat.

He does not know if they will give him a second dose of AstraZeneca, but he prefers it because both the EMA and its Spanish counterpart recommend doing it.

"Now, getting into a study with only 400 patients, I don't know ...", he says, skeptical about the possibility that he will be inoculated with a second dose from another laboratory.

He is a fervent defender of vaccines and although it may have risks, it is clear to him: "Statistically it is easier for me to have a health problem because I don't get it than because of a possible thrombus."

It generates anxiety not knowing what will happen and recognizes that there are "nerves" because finally the light is seen at the end of the tunnel: "Hopeful with the vaccine, everything has gone from black to a gray scale."

"I am provaccine, but things are getting in a way ..."

Isabel Solís is 36 years old and is a primary school teacher in a public school in Dos Hermanas (Seville).

She received the first injection of AstraZeneca on March 2 and since the Ministry of Health and the Autonomous Communities began to suspend the vaccination with that Anglo-Swedish preparation, the feeling of uncertainty has not left her.

A concern that he shares with his colleagues, also vaccinated with a single puncture, and who are trapped in limbo what will happen to their second dose, which for the moment remains suspended at the expense of the Ministry of Health and the Communities making a decision.

Isabel Solís, professor at CEIP Carlos I de Dos Hermanas, Seville, PACO PUENTES / EL PAÍS

“I had the symptoms associated with that vaccine, I started with chills, 38 ° fever, muscle pain ... I didn't sleep well that night, but the next day they disappeared. There was only arm pain where they punctured me, which lasted until the third day, ”he explains. Your main concern now, in addition to how best to teach your children carry subtraction, is knowing when and with what vaccine the second dose will be injected.

"I am provaccine, but things are getting in a way ... We have been vaccinated and one day it seems that it has not been good, another that if you do not wear the second one either ...", he laments.

"The only way to move forward in the face of so much uncertainty is to follow the instructions of the professionals, do what the doctors say," he says.

The Junta de Andalucía defends vaccinating those under 60 years of age with the second dose of AstraZeneca and, in any case, that this option is voluntary.

Solís is in favor of following medical recommendations, but in this case she has no doubts: "I would wear it."

Meanwhile, he is still waiting for the long-awaited call from the Andalusian Health Service to make an appointment for the next puncture or to confirm what the next step will be.

"You don't panic, but you start to eat your head off"

The physiotherapist Irene Campos is 27 years old, she is from Valladolid and comments that she received the dose of AstraZeneca that belonged to a batch that was later withdrawn. This kind of news, he says, caused him some doubts that he did not initially harbor about a vaccination: "You don't panic, but you do start to eat your head a little." It had been about 10 days since he received the first puncture and the subsequent appearance of suspicions towards a consignment of AstraZeneca. Curiosity made her review the data on the one she had received and then she knew it was her turn. Campos began to talk about it with his friends and with his co-workers with some fear that symptoms or some problem related to the dose would appear, but time passed and he brought with him the tranquility that nothing significant was happening to him."You forget, you relax and sigh," sums up the specialist, somewhat uneasy at first.

His employment, he says, is of "direct contact, it is impossible to have distance" with children and adults, hence the importance of the union being immunized as soon as possible.

Campos says "with great desire" that they address her to complete the process and that the final calm arrives.

Having obtained even a single puncture, he points out, already gives him peace of mind because he knows that there is "a high percentage of security" that sooner or later he wants to be completed.

"If they do, I'll be even happier," predicts the physiotherapist.

Now he has to put up with "the uncertainty" in what is known if they will go through the hands of the nurses again in the coming weeks.

With information from

Juan Navarro, Eva Saiz and Cristina Vázquez.