Even five weeks ago, as we wrote at the time, it was easy to see that “spring in Europe is going to be dismal.” The perfect storm of under-procurement, overzealous regulators, and anti-vaccine populations was setting up the continent for months of ultra-strict lockdowns. But the situation now is even worse than we predicted. On Monday, the governments of Germany, France, and Spain halted administration of AstraZeneca’s vaccine based on scattered and unscientific allegations that it can cause blood clots. Today, they threatened to block vaccine exports to countries that don’t export their own production to the European Union. Such a move would be unlikely to significantly change the bloc’s timeline for reopening, but it will surely raise tensions with neighbors, especially the United Kingdom. Further, even if the temporary suspension of AstraZeneca is reversed, Europe will still lagging behind. European leaders must now decide: Stay locked down through early summer as Americans and Brits return to their normal lives or capitulate and tolerate a brutal spike in cases and hospitalizations. The latter path now seems more likely.
One month ago, the European Union was just a couple of weeks behind the United States and United Kingdom in vaccine rollout. Now, it is over one month behind and continues to slip. Only 7.9 percent of Europeans have received at least one dose, compared to 21.7 percent of Americans and 37.2 percent of British. European regulators took a few weeks longer to approve the major vaccines compared to their British and U.S. counterparts. But the slow start out of the gate no longer explains the divergence. The real culprit is an ugly combination of supply shortages and widespread vaccine skepticism. That’s why the United States and United Kingdom have continued to rapidly ramp up daily dose administrations while European countries have not.
