Peer pressure will make more people get vaccinated, believes Sweden's vaccine coordinator Richard Bergström. "When the group of friends is going on a trip this summer, they want to know if everyone has been vaccinated," he says in an SvD interview.
ZÜRICH On the table in the Christmas-themed restaurant are two mobile phones and an extra mobile phone charger. The phones ring constantly and flash as messages from all directions linger. Sweden's vaccine coordinator Richard Bergström casts a quick glance at the blink, presses in quick answers and at the same time tries to eat fried sausage and answer questions.
- It's quite a lot now. Now it's happening, the vaccine is here. This will change everything.
An hour after our lunch in the Swiss city of Zurich it is ready; The European Medicines Agency (EMA) has approved Europe's first el bichito-19 vaccine. A moment later, it is approved by the European Commission.
- Now it's time to adjust. Everyone must be ready and organize the concrete work during Christmas, New Year and the thirteenth weekend. 10,000 vaccine doses will soon be in Sweden and vaccinations can be started at nursing homes around the second day.
- Then 80,000 doses come to Sweden every week until March. The EU receives 3.5 million doses a week. An even flow is important, as everyone should have two doses.
He assures that Sweden will have "enough vaccine for everyone who wants to be able to get vaccinated by the summer". The vaccine delivered by Pfizer is in a kind of large pizza boxes with 975 doses in each box, he further explains. So they manage for 15 days in minus 70 degrees and five days in the refrigerator.
- Then it can go like this: on Monday morning a pizza box opens and you thaw 195 bottles. Then you put maybe 20 bottles in a cooler bag and go out to the nursing home to get vaccinated. If there are two bottles left over, set them in the fridge and use within five days.
- This is absolutely possible. It's a matter of planning. I feel that the regions in Sweden are ready for this.
- Everyone who wants to in Sweden should have been vaccinated by mid-April. There is a bonus system that means that the regions will more quickly achieve 60-70 percent vaccination, which can provide herd immunity.
Will the vaccine also work on the mutated bichito strain reported from the UK?
- Yes, most likely. It takes an infinite amount of changes in the bichito for it to affect the vaccine. Therefore, no one expresses concern that this vaccine would not work against the mutated strain.
What happens if the mutation continues? Can the vaccine then become ineffective?
- There is no indication that we will see an accelerating pace of the mutation. The mRNA technology used in Pfizer / Biontech's vaccine is also easy to update and adapt to any mutations.
How do you view vaccine skepticism, do you dare to take this vaccine?
- I can understand if people are skeptical. We have heard terrible stories after the swine flu vaccine that caused narcolepsy among some.
- In normal cases, flu vaccines are tested on around 3,000 people. But here, Pfizer has tested 44,000 people and only seen side effects such as arm pain and fever. No vaccine is 100% safe, but no serious side effects have been identified.
Richard Bergström says that people "get to think about this for a while and then see the dynamics".
- We will see a great dynamic when airlines may introduce requirements for vaccination, alpine countries require vaccines to ski and countries such as the USA and Asia may require vaccine certificates. Swedes are, after all, a traveling people.
He also believes that there will be a group dynamic where "the group of friends will travel together in the summer and wants to know that everyone is vaccinated".
Criticism has been leveled at the fact that the world's rich countries "vaccine bunkers" and buy up the majority of all vaccine doses, while billions of people in poor countries will not have access to vaccines until 2024. The rich countries have secured an average of three doses per capita while poor can not even vaccinate all healthcare professionals and people at risk, the Vaccine Alliance's Vaccine Alliance states.
What do you think of this critique of vaccine nationalism?
- It is both incorrect and unfair. I do not understand how they think. Do they really think that the EU would take in doses that we then throw away? It will be resold to those who can pay and donated to other countries.
- Of course it is so that we get the vaccine before other countries. But that it would lead to other countries not getting vaccinated because we have bought everything and then thrown away is a serious misunderstanding.
He admits that Sweden and the EU have fully guarded by buying a lot of vaccine. Sweden has over 60 million doses, which is enough for more than three times our population. But this has been done "because we did not know which vaccines would be approved and work in all groups."
- Had the mRNA vaccine gone in the put, we would have lost a lot of money. Now it looks good. What was a weekend hedge has become an overinvestment and good news. A luxury problem.
He emphasizes that the European Commission has a stated ambition for a "zero-waste policy". The intention is to resell or donate vaccines that are not used.
- The EU and its member states have also financed the WHO's COVAX program for poor countries with more than eight billion kronor - and will assist the poor countries with volumes.
The plan is to redistribute vaccines already during the first quarter of next year and ensure that the Western Balkans with countries such as Albania, Montenegro, Northern Macedonia, Kosovo, Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina receive vaccines, says Bergström.
- The EU has promised to vaccinate 7.3 million people from risk groups in the Western Balkans during the first half of the year. This will happen after we have vaccinated our risk groups.
Are you going to vaccinate yourself?
- Absolutely. I'm going to get vaccinated as soon as I can. The plan is not to be able to choose a vaccine. So I take what I get, says Richard Bergström before we separate and he goes home to the family in the Swiss canton of Zug to celebrate Christmas.
- It will be Christmas ham from Sweden and possibly a little free on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. This year has been incredible. I have enough material for a book about this fantastic and tough vaccine trip.
