APELDOORN, The Netherlands (AP) – Down Bieleveldt had a spring in step when the 91-year-old Dutchman received a coronavirus vaccine this week. But many believe it was far too long to come.
Almost two months before, the British Margaret Keenan, who is also 91 years old, received the blow to start the vaccination campaign in Great Britain, which, so far, has surpassed the efforts of many nations in the European Union.
“We depend on what the European Commission says we can and cannot do. As a result, we are at the bottom of the list, it takes far too long, “Bieleveldt said of the EU’s executive arm, which may have unjustly taken the brunt of criticism for a slow launch in many of its member states. Regulations and documents onerous in some countries and poor planning in others have also contributed to the delay, as has a more deliberate authorization process for photos.
Overall, the EU with 27 nations, a collection of many of the richest countries in the world – most with a universal healthcare system – is not doing well compared to countries like Israel and the United Kingdom. Even the United States, whose response to the pandemic has been widely criticized and where tens of thousands of shootings have been canceled due to lack of vaccines, seems to move faster.
While Israel has administered at least one double-dose vaccine to over 40% of its population and this figure in the UK is 10%, the EU total is just over 2%.
And it’s not just EU citizens who blame the bloc’s door. Criticism also comes from many nations who hoped to see a life-saving liquid in the EU crossing their borders.
Amid concerns that richer nations have raised far more doses than they needed and that poorer nations will be left out, the EU was expected to share vaccines around.
The rocky launch also tests the bloc’s long-standing commitment to so-called soft power – policies that advance their cause not through the barrel of a weapon, but through peaceful means, such as the needle of a syringe.
“It is harder to get vaccines today than nuclear weapons,” said Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, who relied on much more EU aid.
Serbia is in the heart of the Balkans, where the EU, Russia and even China are looking for a stronger foothold. Helping the Balkan countries to launch vaccines seemed an area in which Europe, with its medical expertise and willingness to prioritize such cooperation, would have an advantage.
Not so far.
Vucic said a few weeks ago, when he welcomed 1 million doses of Chinese vaccines, that Serbia had not received “a single dose” from the global COVAX system, which aims to obtain photos accessible to poor and middle-income countries. which the EU has supported and funded.
Instead, Vucic said Serbia had secured its vaccines through agreements with individual countries or producers.
Rubbing salt in the wound, Vucic left for the EU’s social conscience when he said this week that “today’s world is like the Titanic. The rich tried to get the lifeboats just for themselves … and leave the rest. “Other nations on the southeastern edge of the EU have also been critical.
It is an important change just a month ago, when the future of the EU looked bright. It had just concluded a last-minute trade agreement with the United Kingdom, concluded a massive 1.8 trillion pandemic recovery and a global budget agreement, and begun launching its first COVID-19 vaccines.
“This is a great way to end this difficult year and finally start turning the page with COVID-19,” said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
Last weekend, however, her attitude worsened as it became clear that the bloc would receive vaccines at a lower rate than agreed for the 450 million people.
AstraZeneca told the EU that of its initial batch of 80 million, only 31 million would materialize immediately after his vaccine was approved, probably on Friday. This came as a minor error in Pfizer-BioNTech photo deliveries.
Both companies say they face operational problems at factories that temporarily delay launch.
Italy is threatening to take legal action against both of them for the delay. Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte boasted that the launch of the country was a huge success, especially when the millionaire dose was given on January 15. But after Pfizer announced a temporary reduction in supply, Italy slowed from delivering about 80,000 doses a day to less than 30,000.
Bulgaria has also criticized pharmaceutical companies, and some have called on the government to turn to Russia and China for vaccines.
Hungary is already doing this. “If the vaccines do not come from Brussels, we have to get them elsewhere. Hungarians cannot be allowed to die just because Brussels is too slow to buy vaccines, “said Prime Minister Viktor Orban. “It doesn’t matter if the cat is black or white as long as it catches mice.”
But supply is not the only thing supporting the EU campaign. The problem is partly that the EU Commission has bet on the wrong horse – and has not received enough doses from early successful vaccines, such as Pfizer-BioNTech. The Commission noted that there was no way of knowing which vaccines would succeed – and which would be the first – and therefore had to spread its orders to several companies.
The launch of the EU has also been slowed down, as the European Medicines Agency has taken longer than US or UK regulators to authorize its first vaccine. This was by design, as it ensured that member nations could not be held accountable in the event of problems and to give people more confidence that the shot was safe.
But individual countries are also to blame.
Germany, the European cliché of an organized and orderly nation, has been found highly desirable, with its launch affected by chaotic bureaucracy and technological failures, such as those seen on Monday when thousands of people over 80 in the country’s largest state were announce that they will have to wait until February 8 to get the first photos, even as the vast vaccination centers set up before Christmas disappeared empty-handed.
“The speed of our action leaves much to be desired,” said Chancellor Angela Merkel. “Processes have often become very bureaucratic and time consuming, so we need to work on that.”
It is no different in France, where there is a Kafkaesque labyrinth of rules to obtain consent for vaccination of the elderly.
In the Netherlands, which relied on the easy-to-handle AstraZeneca vaccine as the first available, authorities had to fight to make new plans for the Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine, whose ultracold storage requirements make it more complicated.
“We have proved that we are not flexible enough to make the change,” said Health Minister Hugo de Jonge.
The Dutch have been especially criticized since they were the last in the EU to start vaccinations, more than a week after the first attacks on the bloc, and were particularly slow to distribute doses to elderly people living at home, such as Bieleveldt, a retiree.
“I already play during the injury in terms of my age,” he said. “But I want to play for a few more years.”
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Casert reported from Brussels. PA journalists from all over the European Union contributed.
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