Thread by @jfkirkegaard

Europe has gotten off to a slow start in its Covid-vaccination program. Reasons are several; 1) Full (not emergency like in UK/US) approval of vaccines takes longer. Decision always debatable, but NOT clear that the EMA "didn't do a proper/crucial job" 1/6 lemonde.fr/planete/articl…

2) EU purchased too few vaccines. True, but uncertainty high in the summer of 2020 about which vaccines would ultimately prove successful, while the opposite concern of "too many EU vaccines" is morally dubious, as the EU must donate them before expiry to needy Dev-countries. 2/6

Ultimately, the EU should/could have purchased more vaccines of also the BioNTEC/Moderna variant without worrying about "excess vaccines" - lives would havebeen saved and EU vaccine diplomacy would have been boosted. 3) EU member states have been poorly organized in vaccine 3/6

rollouts. Undoubtedly the most important cause, especially in light of the extra 2-3weeks slower vacc-approval gave them, relative to UK/US. Yet, fair comparisons of government vacc rollouts probably compares the drive from the date of national vacc approval. Doing so reveal 4/6

that UK/US drives only accelerated ~1month after approval, which the EU has not yet reached. Rather some EU members exceed UK/US levels at this stage (DK), while others match them (IT,ES), some fall short (DE,PL, SE) and others have totally failed (NL, NO, FI, FR). 5/6

:-) of course when you add Israel to the picture.... everyone else have essentially failed. END

@MESandbu
@iainmartin1
@GuntramWolff
@alanbeattie
@adam_tooze
@alemannoEU
@b_judah
@ConStelz
@COdendahl
@duncanrobinson
@sdonnan
@Mij_Europe
@FerdiGiugliano
@SonyKapoor
@john_lichfield
@tom_nuttall
@spignal
@RobinWigg
@Shahinvallee
@YanniKouts
@FabianZuleeg