COVID-19 Vaccines and the EU Fiasco

COVID-19 cases have spiked across the world in the last month or so, and here’s how the active count (i.e., people currently with the disease) of the top 15 countries reads:


The worst hit continent is Europe (all the white rows); so I’ll be focussing on that.

 

Look at the last column which shows number of vaccine doses administered per 100 people. On that front, notice how far ahead the UK is compared is, and how some EU countries haven’t even started vaccinating (red cells).

The EU negotiated its vaccine deals as a block, hoping to get better deals that way. On the price front, it succeeded. But at what cost, asks this article.

  1. The EU needed 27 countries to come to a consensus, which inevitably delayed decision making. The US and the UK struck deals at a faster pace;
  2. While the EU worked with international organizations like WHO, the US “blew that event off” and focused on securing itself first (Yes, the US has hardly handled COVID well, the point here is that they handled their vaccine procurement far, far better);
  3. The EU didn’t learn from its failure with masks and ventilators earlier; its vaccine procurement efforts are proving a similar failure;
  4. France and Spain setup parallel talks with Moderna; Germany and France negotiated together (but without the rest of the EU) at times;
  5. Given the emergency authorization of the vaccines, the US limited the liability of the pharma companies if things went wrong. The EU wasn’t willing to do that, and thus negotiations with pharma companies stalled;
  6. The choice of which vaccine became a stumbling block within the EU. Poorer countries like Bulgaria weren’t keen on mRNA vaccines which required super cold storage temperatures;
  7. The companies that came up with the vaccines were all American or British. Or Russian or Chinese or Indian. Guess who they’d prioritize?
  8. Most of the production was going to happen in India, and that was a production bottleneck that could not be overcome by the EU.

 

Unsurprisingly then, several EU countries are getting fed up. Hungary decided to buy the Russian vaccine, and has now approved the Chinese vaccine. And Belgium has directly asked India for vaccines, outside of the EU.

 

In an earlier blog, I had wondered:

“How do (COVAX) decide which of those countries gets which vaccine? Of course, I have the same question for the EU as well.”

I asked the wrong question. The right question was whether the EU would miss the boat of vaccine procurement as it dilly dallied with having to juggle the opinions of so many member countries. The UK, thanks to Brexit, didn’t have this problem. Plus, yes, it helped that Astra-Zeneca is a British company. Just look at the table at the top again to see what fraction the UK has vaccinated v/s the EU.

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