APELDOORN, The Netherlands (AP) – Jos Bieleveldt had a spring in his step when the 91-year-old Dutchman received a coronavirus vaccine this week. But many think this took too long to arrive.
Almost two months earlier, Britain’s 91-year-old Margaret Keenan had been fired to start the UK vaccination campaign, which has so far surpassed the efforts of many European Union nations.
“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 too long, “said Bieleveldt of the EU’s executive arm, which, perhaps unfairly, has taken on the weight of criticism for slow deployment in many of its member states. regulations and onerous procedures in some countries and poor planning in others have also contributed to the delay, as well as a more deliberate authorization process for shootings.
Overall, the 27-nation EU, a collection of many of the world’s richest countries (most with a universal health care system to start with), is not working well compared to countries like Israel and the UK. . Even the United States, whose response to the pandemic has been widely criticized and where tens of thousands of shooting appointments have been canceled due to a shortage of vaccines, seems to move faster.
Although Israel has administered at least one two-dose vaccine to more than 40% of its population and this figure in Britain is 10%, the EU total stands at just over 2%.
And it’s not just EU citizens who are to blame at the door of the bloc. Criticism also comes from many nations who had longed to see how some life-saving liquid in the EU drains across its borders.
Amid concerns that richer nations would have taken more doses than they needed and that poorer nations would no longer be dispensed with, the EU was expected to share vaccines.
The rocket launch also tests the bloc’s long commitment to so-called soft power, policies that advance its cause not through the barrel of a weapon but through peaceful means, such as through the needle of a syringe.
“Today it is more difficult to get vaccines than nuclear weapons,” said Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, who had much more EU help.
Serbia is in the heart of the Balkan region, where the EU, Russia and even China are looking for a stronger position. Helping the Balkan countries with their vaccine implementation seemed like an area where Europe, with its medical capacity and willingness to prioritize this cooperation, would have an advantage.
Not so far away.
Vucic said weeks ago that he welcomed a million doses of Chinese vaccines that Serbia had not received “a single dose” of the global COVAX system with the aim of obtaining affordable shots in poor and middle-income countries that EU has defended and funded.
Instead, Vucic said Serbia got vaccines through deals with individual countries or producers.
Rubbing salt on the wound, Vucic bet on the EU’s social consciousness 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 countries on the southeastern edge of the EU have also been critical.
It’s a big change from just a month ago, when the future of the EU looked pretty bright. It had just signed a last-minute trade deal with the UK, achieved a massive pandemic recovery of € 1.8 trillion and a general budget deal, and began deploying its first COVID-19 vaccines.
“This is a very good way to end this difficult year and finally start turning the page on COVID-19,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said at the time.
This past weekend, however, his attitude worsened when it became clear that the bloc would receive vaccines at a slower pace than agreed for its 450 million people.
AstraZeneca has informed the EU that its initial batch of 80 million, only 31 million would materialize immediately once the vaccine is approved, probably Friday. This happened with a minor issue in Pfizer-BioNTech photo deliveries.
Both companies claim they face operational problems at plants that temporarily delay deployment.
Italy threatens to take legal action against both for the delay. Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte had boasted that the country’s launch was a huge success, especially when the millionth dose was given on 15 January. But after Pfizer announced a temporary reduction in supply, Italy reduced the administration from 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 vaccination.
Hungary already does. “If the vaccines do not come from Brussels, we must get them from other places. “Hungarians cannot be allowed to die simply because Brussels is too slow to acquire 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 opted for the wrong horse and did not get enough doses from the first successful vaccines like Pfizer-BioNTech. The commission notes that there was no way of knowing which vaccines would be successful and which would be the first, and therefore had to distribute its orders to several companies.
EU deployment also slowed because the European Medicines Agency took longer than US or British regulators to authorize its first vaccine. This was by design, as it was ensured that member nations could not be held responsible in the event of problems and in order 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, was eagerly met, with the deployment marked by chaotic bureaucracy and technological failures, such as those seen on Monday when thousands more were told. 80 years in the largest state in the country they should expect until February 8 to get their first vaccines, even when huge vaccination centers were established before Christmas was empty.
“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 have to work on them.”
It is no different in France, where there is a Kafkaesque labyrinth of rules to obtain consent to vaccinate the elderly.
In the Netherlands, which relied on the easy handling of the AstraZeneca vaccine as the first available, authorities had to fight to make new plans for the Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine, whose ultra-cold storage requirements make it more complicated.
“It has been shown that we are not flexible enough to make the change,” Health Minister Hugo de Jonge said.
The Dutch have been especially criticized since they were the last in the EU to start vaccinations, more than a week after the first shots were fired at the block., and have been especially slow at distributing doses to elderly people living at home, such as Bieleveldt, a retiree.
“I’m already playing in injuries in terms of my age,” he said. “But I still want to play a few more years.”
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Casert reported from Brussels. PA journalists from across the European Union contributed.
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