Italy teachers balk at AstraZeneca vaccine plans

ROME (AP) — Italy’s main teachers' union is balking at plans for educators under age 55 to receive the AstraZeneca vaccine rather than jabs it believes provide better protection, evidence that lobbying groups are vying to get specific shots as the virus and its variants spread across Europe.

The CISL School union said in a statement Monday that it wanted a meeting with Italy’s government scientific committee. It complained that it hadn’t been consulted about the decision to start up the vaccine drive for teachers ahead of schedule, with some of the first 250,000 AstraZeneca doses that arrived over the weekend.

The Italian government rejiggered its vaccination plans last week after Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna reduced vaccine deliveries and Italy’s pharmaceutical agency gave “preferential use” for AstraZeneca shots for people aged 18 to 55. The government is now directing its Pfizer and Moderna shots to inoculate people over age 80 while designating the AstraZeneca jabs for younger, at-risk workers.

Interim analysis from late-stage human trials showed the AstraZeneca vaccine was 70.4% effective at preventing symptomatic COVID-19 after two doses. Pfizer and Moderna reported preliminary results from late-stage trials showing their vaccines were almost 95% effective.

Over the weekend, South Africa suspended plans to inoculate its front-line health care workers with AstraZeneca after a small clinical trial suggested that it isn’t effective in preventing mild to moderate illness from the variant dominant in the country.

To date, Italy has identified one person who tested positive with the variant from South Africa who arrived on a flight from the continent, though it has had more cases of the variants identified in Britain and Brazil. But on Monday, the Austrian government issued a warning against travel...