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Armed with an all-clear for AstraZeneca (NASDAQ:AZN) Plc’s vaccine from EU regulators, European leaders must get a grip on a vaccine drive that’s lagging the U.S. and the U.K. and potentially delaying an economic recovery. The rising pace of cases and a renewed four-week lockdown in parts of France underscore the urgency of the threat.
EU governments including Germany, France and Italy said Thursday they’ll immediately resume administering the Astra shot, which several EU countries suspended after reports of blood clots in some patients.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her Health Minister Jens Spahn will hold talks with regional leaders later on Friday as they try to speed the country’s sluggish vaccination drive. On Monday, they convene again to decide on the next steps in the country’s lockdown strategy, with rising Covid-19 cases suggesting there’s little room for further easing.
The announcement on Astra by the EU’s drug regulator capped a tumultuous few days that featured an agonizing back-and-forth over vaccine safety and a threat by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to withhold vaccine exports to the U.K., reopening a clash with the former EU member country.
“If it was me, I would be vaccinated tomorrow,” European Medicines Agency Executive Director Emer Cooke said Thursday, confirming the conclusion that the Astra shot is safe. While the agency said blood-clot cases are extremely rare and not deemed to be related to the vaccine, its experts couldn’t “definitively” rule out a link.
Europe can ill afford uncertainty about vaccine efficacy. The continent’s Covid-19 infection rate has increased for the past three weeks, to an average of 381 per 100,000 people, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.
If inoculations don’t speed up, the EU will need an estimated 16 months to cover 75% of the population with a two-dose vaccine, according to the Bloomberg Vaccine Tracker. That compares with five months for the U.S. and the U.K.
“I have great confidence that the goal to vaccinate 70% of the adult population before the end of the summer will be reached,” von Der Leyen told Spanish newspaper El Mundo in an interview published Friday.
After the EMA announcement, France said it will quickly resume vaccinations with the AstraZeneca shot. Prime Minister Jean Castex pledged to get the vaccine on Friday to help restore public confidence.
Germany’s Spahn said the decision “confirms the safety and reliability of the AstraZeneca vaccine.” Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi said his government is committed to “the greatest number of vaccinations in the shortest time possible.”
Other EU countries, including Luxembourg and Slovenia, will resume dispensing the vaccine and more are expected to follow. However, in Scandinavia, the EMA’s assurances weren’t enough to persuade national health authorities to immediately resume vaccinations. Instead, Sweden, Norway and Denmark said they will await the conclusions of their own reviews. All three countries say they expect to reach a decision next week.
Elsewhere around the world, Indonesia lifted a suspension on the Astra shot Friday and plans to start distributing it next week. Thailand began its rollout this week after a panel of medical experts decided the shot is safe and didn’t lead to blood clots.
In Britain, where there have been few concerns about the vaccine’s safety, Prime Minister Boris Johnson called the Astra shot safe and said he would get one on Friday. “The thing that isn’t safe is catching Covid,” he said.
Johnson brushed off an increasingly fraught relationship with the EU at a news conference in London. Amid tension over the race to secure vaccine supplies, Johnson and von der Leyen spoke by phone on Wednesday, according to two people familiar with the matter.
Hours earlier, the EU Commission head had threatened to withhold vaccine exports to the U.K. and mooted pulling the EU’s emergency trigger, used only once in its history, to allow authorities to seize control of production and distribution.
Use Them
The EMA’s caveat on the clotting issue could prolong uncertainty that has surrounded the AstraZeneca since the trial phase, when a dosing mistake and different intervals between the two shots created confusion.
A lack of data on its effectiveness in the elderly, which prompted many European countries initially to limit its use to younger people, compounded the doubts.
Asked if governments should restart vaccinations with the two-dose Astra shot, the EMA’s Cooke sought to provide clear guidance.
“This pandemic is costing lives,” she said. “We have vaccines that are safe and effective, that can help prevent death and hospitalization. We need to use those vaccines.”
