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COVID-19 VACCINES

EU could achieve Covid-19 immunity by mid-July, says vaccine chief

The EU's population of 450 million could achieve Covid-19 herd immunity by mid-July, the EU's vaccine chief Thierry Breton told French newspaper Le Parisien.

Published: 5 April 2021 11:38 CEST
EU could achieve Covid-19 immunity by mid-July, says vaccine chief
Thierry Breton, the European Commissioner in charge of the vaccine production task force, said the EU could achieve Covid-19 immunity by mid-July. Photo: Emil Helms / Ritzau Scanpix / AFP

Breton, the EU commissioner in charge of the vaccine task force, had already suggested at the end of March that herd immunity would be possible in the EU by July 14th, as incoming jabs are expected to speed up the continent’s sluggish vaccine rollout.

On Monday, he confirmed his prediction to Le Parisien: “We now have good visibility of what is happening, from the production of vaccines to the distribution and tests,” he said.

“Fourteen million doses were delivered to the EU in January, 28 million in February and 60 million in March. For the next quarter, we will increase to 100 million in April, May and June. Then 120 million in the summer, and we will reach a rate of 200 million from September,” he said.

In the second half of the year as a whole, the EU will have received over 800 million doses, according to Breton.

READ ALSO: Europe’s slow vaccine rollout is ‘prolonging the pandemic’ as infections surge

The note of optimism came after several European countries have reimposed restrictions in an attempt to halt soaring Covid case numbers, and the World Health Organisation slammed Europe’s vaccine rollout as “unacceptably slow” on Thursday, saying that it was prolonging the pandemic.

“Vaccines present our best way out of the pandemic…However, the rollout of these vaccines is unacceptably slow,” WHO director for Europe Hans Kluge said in a statement.

So far, only about 10 percent of the region’s total population have received one vaccine dose, and four percent have completed a full vaccine series, the organisation said.

The WHO’s European region comprises 53 countries and territories and includes Russia and several Central Asian nations.

But when it comes to the EU’s slow vaccine rollout, Breton blamed the AstraZeneca laboratory.

“If we had received 100 percent of the AstraZeneca vaccines we were contractually owed, today the EU would be at the same level as the UK in terms of vaccination,” he said. “I can confirm that this hole is due entirely to AstraZeneca’s delivery failures.”

READ ALSO: Questions about possible AstraZeneca jab side-effects linger

On Monday, Johnson & Johnson said it would start delivering its single-shot Covid vaccine to Europe on April 19th, giving the continent a boost in its vaccination drive.

The EU has signed a firm order for 200 million J&J doses and an option for 200 million more.

Member comments

  1. Typical French bullshit:

    “If we had received 100 percent of the AstraZeneca vaccines we were contractually owed, today the EU would be at the same level as the UK in terms of vaccination,” he said. “I can confirm that this hole is due entirely to AstraZeneca’s delivery failures.”

    The EU was simply late, couldn’t make a decision, didn’t put any effort (or money) into the Oxford vaccine’s development as the UK did, then having belatedly put in an order didn’t read or understand the contract they signed, again couldn’t make a decision to allow the vaccine to be used, then stockpiled what they had (which is probably still the case), then threatened illegally to ban exports and they’re still in a mess.

    “The EU’s population of 450 million could achieve Covid-19 herd immunity by mid-July” – only in your dreams Mr Breton!

    The sclerotic EU administration are useless and the whole debacle is nothing to do with science and everything to do with politics. Pathetic, dangerous and will come back to haunt them.

    That’s the truth.

    1. A perfect summary of what has happened. Political posturing by the EU Commission has left them in this dire situation, and rather than take responsibility for their actions they want to blame someone else. I feel very sad for the people that have died from their mistakes.

  2. I don’t see how more deliveries from AZ to the EU would have made any difference since it was widely publicised at the time that the EU wasn’t even using up the deliveries they had received. This is all political double-speak which is pretty shameful in the midst of a lethal pandemic.

  4. This pandemic has reinforced my belief that politicians and these global organisations are not to be believed FULL STOP.

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EUROPEAN UNION

Denmark joins countries calling for asylum centres outside EU

Denmark is one of 15 EU member states who have sent a joint letter to the European Commission demanding a further tightening of the bloc's asylum policy, which will make it easier to transfer undocumented migrants to third countries, such as Rwanda, including when they are rescued at sea.

Published: 16 May 2024 16:08 CEST
Denmark joins countries calling for asylum centres outside EU

The letter, sent to the European Commission on Thursday, comes less than a month before European Parliament elections, in which far-right anti-immigration parties are forecast to make gains.

The letter asks the European Union’s executive arm to “propose new ways and solutions to prevent irregular migration to Europe”.

The group includes Italy and Greece, which receive a substantial number of the people making the perilous journey across the Mediterranean Sea to reach the EU — many seeking to escape poverty, war or persecution, according to the International Organization for Migration.

They want the EU to toughen up its recently adopted asylum pact, which introduces tighter controls on those seeking to enter the 27-nation bloc.
That reform includes speedier vetting of people arriving without documents, new border detention centres and faster deportation for rejected asylum applicants.

The 15 proposed in their letter the introduction of “mechanisms… aimed at detecting, intercepting — or in cases of distress, rescuing — migrants on the high seas and bringing them to a predetermined place of safety in a partner country outside the EU, where durable solutions for those migrants could be found”.

They said it should be easier to send asylum seekers to third countries while their requests for protection are assessed.

They cited the example of a controversial deal that Italy has struck with non-EU Albania, under which Rome can send thousands of asylum seekers plucked from Italian waters to holding camps in the Balkan country until their cases are processed.

The concept in EU asylum law of what constitutes “safe third countries” should be reassessed, they continued.

Safe country debate

EU law stipulates that people arriving in the bloc without documents can be sent to a third country, where they could have requested asylum — so long as that country is deemed safe and the applicant has a genuine link with it.

That would exclude schemes like the divisive law passed by the UK, which has now left the EU, enabling London to refuse all irregular arrivals the right to request asylum and send them to Rwanda.

Rights groups accuse the African country — ruled with an iron fist by President Paul Kagame since the end of the 1994 genocide that killed around 800,000 people — of cracking down on free speech and political opposition.

The 15 nations said they wanted the EU to make deals with third countries along the main migration routes, citing the example of the arrangement it made with Turkey in 2016 to take in Syrian refugees from the war in their home country.

The letter was signed by Austria, Bulgaria, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Estonia, Greece, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland and Romania.

It was not signed by Hungary, whose Prime Minister Viktor Orban has resisted EU plans to share out responsibility across the bloc for hosting asylum seekers, or to contribute to the costs of that plan.

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