First on sunbeds

Germans face a holiday at home

BRITS will get the pick of sun loungers this year due to the EU’S failure to order enough vaccines, a German economist predicts.

Professor Moritz Schularick said the UK will be ahead of other European countries as it plans to vaccinate 75% of the population by July.

He said: “Germany will be stuck at home when other countries can travel again.

“Even under optimistic assumptions, it will take Germany three months longer to achieve the same.”

Vaccine shortages in Germany means the country will be waiting until September before it catches up with the UK, meaning Germans will miss out on much-loved foreign sunshine holidays.

German health minister Jens Spahn said: “We have weeks of shortages ahead of us until April. It can’t be done any faster.”

The UK has bought 100million doses of the Oxford/astrazeneca vaccine and is distributing them across the country at a rapid pace.

More good news came as a landmark study found the Oxford vaccine may lead to a “substantial” fall in Covid infections. A single shot reduced positive cases by 67% with efficacy increasing to 82.4% after a second dose.

Dr Gillies O’bryan-tear, of the

Faculty of Pharmaceutical

■ by WILL STONE

Medicine, said the study showed Oxford/astrazeneca is “the holy grail” of vaccines.

He said: “If these vaccines reduce transmission to the extent reported, it will mean that the easing of social restrictions will be enabled sooner.

“That would be the holy grail of the global vaccine rollout and these data bring us one step closer.” The European Union is facing a cost of tens of billions of euros due to the slow and chaotic rollout of coronavirus vaccinations.

Lockdowns mean the bloc’s economy is still only operating at about 95% of its pre-pandemic level, according to Bloomberg Economics.

This has left the region haemorrhaging about 12billion euros (£10.5bn) a week in lost output. And it will be forced to keep lockdowns and other social restrictions in place well into the summer unless it catches up with Britain’s vaccination rollout rate.

German chancellor Angela Merkel said: “We stand by our commitment to offer every citizen a vaccination by the end of summer.”

● BRITAIN could be “more or less back to normal” by the summer, a Government scientific adviser has claimed.

Sage member Professor Andrew Hayward said: “Once the most vulnerable people, particularly those over 50 and those with chronic illnesses, are vaccinated then yes I think we can see a significant return to normality.”