It’s hard to think of a recent fiasco that coincides with the deployment of the European vaccine for Covid. Protectionism, mercantilism, bureaucratic incapacity, lack of political accountability, crippling security ism – it’s all here. The Keystone Kops in Brussels and European capitals would be funny if the consequences were not so serious.
But hospitalizations and deaths are on the rise again in Italy, Germany and France, while successful vaccinations are suppressing diseases and deaths in the US, the UK and Israel. To date, the US has administered 34 doses per 100 inhabitants, the UK has stabbed 40 and Israel has 111. Most vaccines require two doses. Compare that to about 12 in France, Germany and Italy.
As the pandemic enters the reopening phase, Europe’s failures will cost the rest of the world economically as the continent struggles to gain a foothold.
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Take the latest whisper first. Several European regulators and politicians have said this week that the Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccine – the only one currently available in the EU – may be unsafe, just to think again and beg people to accept it now.
This time the concern was that the jab in some patients caused blood clotting or problems with platelets. Some people who received the vaccine developed blood clots, but the European Medicines Agency (EMA) found that the vaccine was not associated with an increase in the overall risk.