“I was vaccinated with AstraZeneca and I am so grateful!” – BZ Berlin

Nurse Christiane Rücker (55) was vaccinated with AstraZeneca and is happy, even if she had severe side effects.

Chills, body aches, 39 degrees fever. One day after her vaccination, Christiane Rücker (55) was lying flat with “a really good vaccination reaction”, as she calls it.

On Monday afternoon, the surgical nurse was vaccinated at her workplace, the Caritas Hospital Maria Heimsuchung. With AstraZeneca.
“It started that night,” she says, “with a huge headache. That was tough. ” She spent Tuesday in bed, on Wednesday she was free, was able to recover, “and on Thursday I went back to work”.

Like Christiane Rücker, there are currently many people who are vaccinated with AstraZeneca. A good half suffer from headaches and fatigue, around 40 percent from muscle pain. Ten percent get nausea and fever like Christiane Rücker.

But because the third vaccine approved in Germany was not tested in studies as being quite as effective as the agents from Biontech and Moderna, it now has an image problem: Does not work, hardly protects, has bad side effects. It is said again and again. Many people therefore prefer to be vaccinated with the more effective vaccine from Biontech and Moderna.

But experts reject that. AstraZeneca also protects against illness in six to seven out of ten cases (effectiveness 60 to 70 percent). With biotech it is up to 95 percent.

But according to studies, all three vaccines prevent a particularly severe course of Covd-19 disease in almost all cases. And that’s what it’s about.  The  Paul Ehrlich Institute (PEI), which is responsible for the safety of vaccines, emphasized again on Thursday that all three vaccines continue to be rated positively. Any protection is better than no protection at all.

Germany’s leading virologist, the head of the Institute for Virology at the Berlin Charité, Christian Drosten (48) says: “

 The  available vaccines are extremely good and we have to do everything we can to vaccinate as quickly as possible.”

Surgical nurse Christiane Rücker cannot understand the current excitement about the vaccine: “I didn’t think it would knock me out like that, but I also know that my body reacts violently from the annual flu vaccination. But this reaction also shows that the vaccination is working. ”

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Despite the side effects, she is relieved. “We should be grateful that vaccines are out,” she says. “Because the worst side effect of not getting vaccinated is death.”

And that’s what Corona is all about. You have to prevent that. And that’s what AstraZeneca promises.

And the reactions were by no means so pronounced among all of her colleagues. “Many only complained about a pressure point at the puncture site,” says the nurse.

Concerns, as they can currently be read a lot on social media, are rare in the Caritas hospital, according to Rücker. Almost all of the clinic’s employees have or want to be vaccinated, she says. “I don’t know anyone who won’t,” she says.

 The  first got the Biontech vaccine, now there are more from Astra Zeneca.

Would she have preferred the better tolerated vaccine? “I didn’t even think about that,” says Christiane Rücker, “these are luxury concerns.”

AstraZeneca is also used by the state-owned hospital company Vivantes. Almost 2000 vaccine doses have been allocated to the hospitals. Prof. Dr. Sven glasses, chief physician for pneumology and infectious diseases at Vivantes Klinikum Neukölln and Vivantes Klinikum Spandau and head of the Vivantes Pandemic Staff:

“

 The  risk of developing symptoms of Covid infection is also significantly reduced with the Astra Zeneca vaccine. It is an effective vaccine that we will continue to use. ”4,200 employees at Vivantes have already been vaccinated.

 The  vaccination center in the former Tegel Airport, where AstraZeneca is vaccinated, was also very busy on Saturday. Every minute the shuttle buses brought doctors and medical staff to vaccinate.

Christiane Rücker has been a sister in operations for 35 years and has been working in the Caritas hospital in Pankow for eight years. So she is also exposed to the virus. “If someone bleeds and is infected with corona, they still have to be treated immediately,” she says.

And despite protective clothing, it was a permanent threat. “Fortunately, nothing has happened in the operating room so far, but many colleagues have been infected in the last twelve months,” she says, “so we just said when the vaccine will finally come and not, maybe we can have something better.”

She herself has not yet been sick. “But my parents and my son had Corona,” she says. “Fortunately, everyone is fine. And my daughter is totally relieved that I am finally vaccinated. ”

And there is also optimism in the hospital: “

 The  relief is just huge,” says the nurse.