Europe’s self-defeating vaccine battle – WSJ

Europe, the US and the UK have orders or options for about the same dose per capita. But the US and the UK moved faster to obtain contracts, making it easier to prepare pharmaceutical companies. According to the British analysis firm Airfinity, Washington and London also spent about seven times as much on development, production and procurement. Some US states face distribution challenges like many European countries, but US and UK regulators have approved vaccinations faster than their EU counterparts.

The results are already clear. By Thursday, the UK had administered doses to more than 11% of residents, while the US was approaching 8%. Denmark was a European success story with 3.7%, while France and Sweden weakened by about 2%.

It did not inspire much reflection in Brussels. EU mandarins admonished AstraZeneca this week after the firm announced that production problems at a European plant would mean it would deliver tens of millions of doses this quarter. The European Commission on Wednesday ordered a raid on AstraZeneca’s production site in Belgium.

“At the time, Europe wanted to be provided at the same time as the UK, although the contract was signed three months later,” Pascal Soriot, head of AstraZeneca, told an Italian newspaper this week. “So we said, ‘OK, we’re going to do our best, we’re going to try, but we can not contractually, because we’re three months behind the UK.”

EU Commissioner for Health Stella Kyriakides said the contract required vaccines to be diverted from British factories to Europe. The company must publish the agreement and let the public judge who is telling the truth. But this ugly episode is a good advertisement for Brexit.

By the way, London let its voice go in December with the AstraZeneca vaccine. German officials ruled on Thursday that the vaccine should not be given to people over the age of 64, and an EU decision is not expected until Friday.

Brussels will soon give national governments the power to block millions of vaccine doses from Europe. Such restrictions will certainly fall back, because other countries in Europe are taking revenge and complicated supply chains are falling apart.

Brussels demonstrates its unique ability to shoot itself in the foot by transforming its crisis of vaccine incompetence into deeper economic damage. The EU’s biggest challenge following the pandemic is to revive economic growth despite decades of policy mismanagement. Nothing yet says ‘closed to business’ like harassing businesses that offer life-saving medical treatments.