The self-defeating vaccine fight in Europe – WSJ

Europe, the USA and the United Kingdom have orders or options for approximately the same number of doses per capita. But the US and the UK moved faster to secure contracts, which made it easier for pharmaceutical companies to prepare. Washington and London also spent about seven times as much on development, production and in-person procurement, according to British analysis firm Airfinity. Some US states face distribution challenges like many European countries, but US and British regulators have approved vaccines 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 disappeared with around 2%.

This did not inspire much reflection in Brussels. EU mandarins spent this week admonishing AstraZeneca after the company announced that problems with the production of a European factory mean it will deliver tens of millions of doses less than expected this quarter. The European Commission on Wednesday ordered a raid on the AstraZeneca production site.

“Europe at the time wanted to be supplied more or less at the same time as the UK, even though the contract was signed three months later,” AstraZeneca chief Pascal Soriot told a weekly Italian newspaper. “So I said, ‘OK, we’ll do our best, we’ll try, but we can’t get a contract, because we’re three months behind the United Kingdom.'”

European Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides said the contract required vaccines to be redirected from UK factories to Europe. The company should publish the agreement and let the public judge tell the truth. But this ugly episode is a good advertisement for Brexit.

By the way, London approved the AstraZeneca vaccine in December. German officials said 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 the export of millions of doses of vaccine from Europe. Such restrictions will certainly have a negative effect, as other countries retaliate against Europe and complex supply chains fall apart.

Brussels is demonstrating its unique self-shooting skills by turning its crisis of vaccine incompetence into deeper economic damage. The EU’s major challenge after the downturn of the pandemic will be to revive economic growth, despite decades of mismanagement of policies. However, nothing says “closed for business”, such as harassing companies that offer life-saving medical treatments.