A more detailed explanation of Euro-failings re vaccination:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/20/world/europe/europe-vaccine-rollout-astrazeneca.htmlOnly about 10 percent of Europeans have received a first dose, compared with 23 percent in the United States and 39 percent in Britain.
The EU is said to be about 5 weeks behind the US, and while 5 weeks might not sound like a lot, vaccines have only been a reality for about 16 weeks, so that's a significant lag:
Three or four main points which help explain why/how the EU stumbled:
1. The US partnered with vaccine developers/makers and splashed around cash (give Trump some credit), while the EU was content to merely be a customer and a cheap one at that:
European governments are often seen in the United States as free-spending, liberal bastions, but this time it was Washington that threw billions at drugmakers and cosseted their business.
Brussels, by comparison, took a conservative, budget-conscious approach that left the open market largely untouched. And it has paid for it.
In short, the answer today is the same as it was in December, said Dr. Slaoui. The bloc shopped for vaccines like a customer. The United States basically went into business with the drugmakers, spending much more heavily to accelerate vaccine development, testing and production.
“They assumed that simply contracting to acquire doses would be enough,” recalled Dr. Slaoui, whom President Donald J. Trump hired to speed the vaccine development. “In fact what was very important was to be a full, active partner in the development and the manufacturing of the vaccine. And to do so very early.”
2. Lack of EU coordination and squabbles over vaccine liability:
Drugmakers expected the same concessions in Europe, but the back and forth over liability was the major stumbling block, Ms. Gallina said. European negotiators had to reconcile disparate liability laws across multiple countries, finding common ground among 27 leaders.
“In a crisis, it always becomes clear that the E.U. is not a country,” said Jacob Kirkegaard, of the German Marshall Fund. He said the bloc approached vaccine procurement like a contract negotiation when in fact “it was a zero-sum game with limited supply.”
3. The EU backed some drug companies that failed vaccine-wise, while cheaping out:
European institutions are, by design, risk-averse. One of the founding tenets of the European Union is called the precautionary principle: The bloc errs on the side of caution when risks are unclear.
That, some analysts have said, hurt the bloc. German leaders argued for a heftier bet on vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech and CureVac, but they were based on unproven messenger RNA technology and were more expensive. The bloc had just settled a thorny economic rescue package, and there was little appetite among members for more risk or spending.
It didn’t help that Europe backed the wrong horse in some cases. It spent billions on a vaccine candidate from French drugmaker Sanofi and Britain’s GSK that was delayed by over a year after disappointing results.
So the bloc relied heavily on AstraZeneca for its early rollout plans, a bet that had repercussions from the beginning. Italy, for example, embraced Europe’s bet on AstraZeneca doses because they were cheaper and did not require extreme storage temperatures. But then Italian regulators recommended against giving the vaccine to the elderly until more data were available, leaving a country with the oldest population in Europe more vulnerable to the pandemic.
4. The EU delayed almost 3 weeks in approving the AZ vaccine.
I put lengthy quotes since it's a NYTimes article.
I simply stop it from downloading and get it all free.
