Europe lines up more shots to beat back surge

Only about one in five of EU’s 450 million inhabitants have received their first jab to protect against virus

Slow out of the gate, the European Union has ramped up its COVID-19 vaccination efforts, with the distribution of the Johnson & Johnson oneshot product this week adding to the momentum amid doggedly high infection rates on the continent.

The EU’s vaccine drive still lags far behind that of Britain or the United States. Only about one in five of the bloc’s 450 million inhabitants have received their first shot — approximately half the U.S. share. But European officials say they have turned the corner.

“In the first quarter of 2021 only 10 per cent of Germans were able to receive a first vaccination due to the shortage of vaccine,” German Health Minister Jens Spahn said this week. “We achieved the next 10 per cent in just three weeks.”

France celebrated several vaccine milestones recently, including dispensing at least one dose to practically 100 per cent of the country’s 700,000 nursing home residents.

And Italy, the Netherlands and other countries are pressing ahead with plans to begin dispensing the J&J shot, or are already doing so, after the EU’s drug regulatory agency Tuesday gave the green light for its use amid concerns over a rare type of blood clot seen in an extremely small number of recipients in the U.S.

“The numbers now are encouraging,” said Manfred Weber, a German member of the European Parliament, adding that the EU should be able to offer every citizen a vaccine by the end of the summer.

“If that works out, then I believe many Europeans will say, ‘OK, it was a bumpy ride and things didn’t work out at the start. But in the end we Europeans will be the first continent to be fully vaccinated,’ ” he said.

The uptick comes as countries across Europe grapple with a rise in infections that has pushed the EU’s overall number of coronavirus cases close to 30 million, while deaths recently passed 660,000, according to the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control.

Hospitals in many European countries are again under strain, treating increasingly younger patients with severe COVID-19 as older age groups benefit from the vaccinations.

Officials have said more contagious variants of the virus now dominate, with German Chancellor Angela Merkel warning recently: “We basically have a new pandemic.”

The vaccination drive on the continent has been dealt repeated setbacks, including production delays, concerns about the effectiveness of the AstraZeneca shot, and the clotting scare, which also involved the AstraZeneca vaccine. Both vaccines have now been cleared for use in Europe, with regulators saying the benefits of getting inoculated against COVID-19 far outweigh the risks.

Merkel said Wednesday that the EU’s decision to jointly purchase vaccines for all its 27 members — fiercely criticized in some quarters as an abdication of national responsibility — had prevented “a brutal competition by larger, stronger and perhaps richer countries against smaller ones.”

“There would have been enormous potential for destruction” within the EU, she said.