by Martin Banks
Consider this: on the day the UK announced it had given the coronavirus jab to 1.5m of its citizens, there were some EU member states yet to vaccinate a single one of their citizens. These included The Netherlands, which has always prided itself on its healthcare system, but neighbouring Belgium also pretty much matched the Dutch in terms of rolling out (or not) the vaccine. As Germany and France do.
Yes, this is the self-same Belgium where the vaccine developed by Pfizer with its German partner BioNTech (the first vaccine to be approved for use in the world). Tens of thousands of the Pfizer vaccine have been pouring out of Puurs, a small town located in the Belgian province of Antwerp. That is the good news. The bad news is that hardly any have actually found themselves to Belgian citizens. On the day the UK said 1.5m Brits had had the Pfizer jab, little Belgium was still to formally launch its vaccination campaign. The same happened in Germany, where also vaccines are produced, but not for the Germans. Reason for this disaster, the European Commission was and still is slow in rolling out of the vaccines.
As a UK newspaper columnist once said: You could not make it up. Unlike a lot of the “issues” that have taken up our time in recent years (Brexit, the economic crisis….) this one – the pandemic – really does matter. It is, literally, a matter of life and death and that is why the response to it also matters.
So, what exactly is going on? Well, let us be clear: the UK was very fast out of the blocks in getting the vaccine out to its people. What is also painfully clear is that the EU has been painfully slow in its roll out. It could be argued this is due to the fact that the EU 27 were all forced to wait for the European Medicines Agency to give approval before any roll out could start.
The newly “independent” UK has its own authorisation authority. But because it is no longer tied to the EU, the UK was able to give approval to the vaccine much quicker than the EMA evidently was. It was, subsequently, also able to start the roll out much sooner. But there is more to it than that. The UK, whatever you may think of Brexit, has made a very good job of the roll out, thus far. It has even made a point of drawing on its war time experience as part of its determination to get as many of its citizens vaccinated with one or more of the approved vaccines, and as soon as possible.
And Europe? Two vaccines have now been approved by the EMA, the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine and another developed by Moderna. But millions of people all over Europe, including in Belgium and Germany where vaccines are produced, are complaining about the slow roll out. Imagine how galling it must have been for Belgians to see packages of the vaccine being despatched from the Flemish factory and shipped, via the English Channel, to the UK while they (the Belgians) were still waiting for a single Belgian to be given a jab.
The European commission makes a point of saying it has done its bit in agreeing the contracts with pharma firm like Pfizer and, more recently, Moderna (with more likely to follow soon). A commission spokesman said it had “done the deals” and it was now up to member states to agree with each pharma company how many vaccines they want and the handle the distribution of these to their peoples. Public health is, after all, primarily a national competence.
Typically, the “blame game” is underway but the fact is that Europe’s 450 million population desperately need to know that these vaccines are going to become available to them quickly. Right now, the EU and its member states are being badly embarrassed by the UK (and some other countries too, like the US and Israel) and they very urgently need to inject some much needed urgency into their vaccine roll out efforts.
If this is what a country (the UK) can do when it has exited the “constraints” of the European Union, it makes you fear for the future of the EU.
By: N. Peter Kramer
