Given the European Union’s underwhelming COVID-19 vaccine rollout performance and its shambolic communications undermining trust in the AstraZeneca shot, it easy to understand why the union’s national governments have taken matters into their own hands.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has taken self-reliance to an extreme. In January, well before the vaccines were ready for shipment, the strongman struck deals for 2 million doses of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine and 5 million doses of China’s Sinopharm, bypassing both the European Commission’s procurement and the European Medicines Agency’s (EMA) approval processes. With 4.2 million doses administered, the nation of 9.7 million people has vaccinated more of its citizens than all other EU member states.
