APELDOORN, Netherlands (AP) – Jos Bieleveldt had a spring in his step when the 91-year-old Dutchman was given a coronavirus vaccine this week. But many think it has taken far too long.
Nearly two months earlier, British Margaret Keenan, who is now also 91, got her chance to start the UK’s vaccination campaign, which has so far surpassed efforts in many countries 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 is taking far too long, ” said Bieleveldt of the EU’s executive arm, which, perhaps wrongly, has been the victim of criticism for slow rollout in many of its members . states. Cumbersome regulations and paperwork in some countries and poor planning in others also contributed to the delay, as did a more deliberate authorization process for the recordings.
Overall, the EU of 27 countries, a collection of many of the richest countries in the world – most with a universal health care system – is not doing well when compared to countries like Israel and the United Kingdom. Even the United States, whose response to the pandemic was otherwise widely criticized and where tens of thousands of admissions appointments have been canceled due to vaccine shortages, seems to move faster.
While Israel has given at least one injection of a two-dose vaccine to more than 40% of its population and that figure is 10% in Britain, the total in the EU is just over 2%.
And it’s not just EU citizens who blame the bloc. Criticism is also coming from many countries that had hoped that some life-saving liquid from the EU would seep past their borders.
Amid concerns that the richer countries had taken far more doses than they needed and that the poorer countries would have to do without, the EU was expected to share vaccines.
The rocky rollout also tests the block’s long commitment to so-called soft power – policies that advance the cause not through the barrel of a gun, but peacefully, like through the needle of a syringe.
“Nowadays it is more difficult to get vaccines than nuclear weapons,” said Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, who had counted on much more help from the EU.
Serbia is in the heart of the Balkans, where the EU, Russia and even China are looking for a stronger position. Helping the Balkans roll out vaccines seemed an area where Europe, with its medical competence and willingness to prioritize such cooperation, would have a head start.
Not that far.
Vucic said weeks ago, when he welcomed 1 million doses of Chinese vaccines, that Serbia had not received a “single dose” from the global COVAX system that aims to provide affordable injections for poor and middle-income countries that the EU has defended and funded.
Instead, Vucic said Serbia has secured vaccines through agreements with individual countries or manufacturers.
Vucic rubbed salt into the wound and went for the social conscience of the EU when he said this week: “Today’s world is like Titanic. The wealthy tried to get the lifeboats just for themselves … and leave the rest behind. “Other countries on the southeastern edge of the EU were also critical.
It’s a big turnaround 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, reached a massive £ 1.8 trillion pandemic recovery, and reached an overall budget deal, and began launching its first COVID-19 vaccines.
“This is a very good way to end this difficult year and finally turn the page on COVID-19,” said Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission at the time.
But last weekend, her stance soured when it became clear that the bloc would receive vaccines more slowly than agreed for its 450 million people.
AstraZeneca has told the EU of its first batch of 80 million, only 31 million would be realized immediately once the vaccine was approved, likely on Friday. That came on the heels of a smaller outage in Pfizer-BioNTech footage deliveries.
Both companies say they have operational problems at factories that are temporarily delaying rollout.
Italy is threatening to take legal action against both because of the delay. Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte had lauded that the country’s rollout was a huge success, especially when the millionth dose was given on January 15. But after Pfizer announced the temporary reduction in supply, Italy slowed down from administering about 80,000 doses per day to less than 30,000. .
Bulgaria has also criticized the pharmaceutical companies, with some there calling on the government to turn to Russia and China for vaccines.
Hungary is already doing that. “If vaccines don’t come from Brussels, we have to get them from elsewhere. Hungarians cannot be allowed to die simply because Brussels is too slow in obtaining vaccines, ”said Prime Minister Viktor Orban. “It doesn’t matter if the cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice.”
But the offer isn’t the only thing holding back the EU campaign. Part of the problem is that the European Commission was betting on the wrong horse – and not getting enough doses of the early success vaccines like Pfizer-BioNTech. The commission notes that there was no way of knowing which vaccines would succeed – and which would be first – and so it had to divide its orders across different companies.
The EU’s rollout was also delayed because the European Medicines Agency took longer than the US or UK regulators to approve its first vaccine. This was because it ensured that Member States could not be held accountable in case of problems and to give people more confidence that the shot was safe.
But individual countries also share the blame.
Germany, Europe’s cliché of an organized and orderly nation, turned out to have a major flaw, with its rollout marred by chaotic bureaucracy and technological failures, such as that of Monday when thousands of over-80s in the country’s largest state were told they were had to wait. until Feb. 8 to get their first injections, even as huge vaccination centers set up for Christmas languished empty.
“The speed of our action leaves a lot to be desired,” said Chancellor Angela Merkel. “Processes have often become very bureaucratic and take a long time, so we have to work on that.”
This is no different in France, where there is a kafkaesque jumble of rules to get permission to vaccinate the elderly.
In the Netherlands, relying on the easy-to-handle AstraZeneca vaccine to be the first available, authorities had to hurry to make new plans for the Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine, whose ultra-cold storage requirements complicate matters.
“We turned out to be insufficiently flexible to implement the change,” said Health Minister Hugo de Jonge.
The Dutch are particularly criticized for being the last in the EU to start vaccinations, more than a week after the first injections in the block were given., and they have been especially slow to roll out doses to elderly people living at home, such as Bieleveldt, a retiree.
“I’ve been playing in injury time given my age,” he said. “But I want to play for a few more years.”
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Casert reported from Brussels. AP journalists from all over the European Union contributed.
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