The European one may have been one of the most criticized vaccination strategies on the globe, for its delays in start-up, production problems, doubts about safety and hesitation in deployment.
It even sparked one of the first diplomatic conflicts with the UK in the post-Brexit era.
But it has turned out to be one of the most successful healthcare careers on the planet.
Brussels announced this Tuesday that the milestone of immunizing 70% of adults in the European Union has been reached, meeting the ambitious target set for the end of this summer ahead of time.
The data, made public by the president of the Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, is nevertheless clouded by the growing gap between the most compliant countries, with Malta, Denmark, Spain and Portugal in the lead, and the laggards club, with Bulgaria and Romania in the tail wagon, where immunization among those over 18 years of age is still around 20% and 30% respectively, according to ECDC data. In Spain, according to this same source, which is usually updated with a couple of days delay, almost 77% of adults already have the complete guideline.
70% of adults in EU are fully vaccinated.
I want to thank the many people making this great achievement possible.
But we must go further!
We need more Europeans to vaccinate.
And we need to help the rest of the world vaccinate, too.
We'll continue supporting our partners.
pic.twitter.com/VxdvZlrwYv
- Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen) August 31, 2021
This threshold, in any case, was not set by Brussels to be met in an aggregate way by the Twenty-seven, but rather as a recommendation by the Commission to each Member State.
And there is still a long way to go to reach this goal: several countries, especially those of the Eastern bloc, are still at a certain distance and it is likely that some will never be able to achieve it.
In February, with the drug factories at half gas and the suspicions of consignments of vials fleeing abroad, analysts of all kinds tried to explain how the EU had failed to lag behind the United Kingdom or the United States; With the numbers in hand, very few predicted that the milestone was achievable. But the increase in production capacity, the low rejection of vaccination in the EU and the effort of the capitals to reach the arm of the population have made it possible to turn the situation around. To date, some 530 million punctures have been inoculated in the EU and the continent now has a productive vaccine locomotive capable of producing 300 million doses per month.
“More than 250 million people are immunized. This is a great success that shows what we can do when we work together ”, said Von der Leyen on Tuesday in an institutional video. In the United States, where the immunization campaign started early, they have only managed to vaccinate 163 million adults, 63.4%. That is to say: almost seven points below the EU. There, Biden has gone from breastfeeding due to the rhythm of injections at the beginning of his term to urging the population to be immunized, fearing the growing outbreaks of the delta variant and the resistance of a bellicose anti-vaccine sector.
In Europe, in any case, the decreasing pace of immunization rates reflects that a wall of people willing to inoculate is being reached.
"The pandemic is not over and we must remain vigilant," added Von der Leyen.
“We need many more Europeans to get vaccinated quickly to avoid a new wave of infections and stop the emergence of new variants.
I ask everyone who can get vaccinated.
It is the only way to protect yourselves and the rest "
More information
Seven communities already exceed 70% of the population with complete vaccination in the week that Spain will achieve this goal
At the moment, the EU is the great world machine for making vaccines: it has the capacity to produce some 300 million doses per month, mainly of mRNA technology, such as that of Pfizer and BioNTech, the most used in the community block.
It is also the world's great exporter of vials.
And it is now crossing the 70% threshold as the idea of a third booster dose gains momentum, which the Commission does not rule out.
"Success story"
"If necessary, we have the necessary production capacity and we will provide it," asserts the European Commissioner for Industry, Thierry Breton, who has led the division created by Brussels to boost production after the setbacks at the beginning of the year. The Frenchman, who receives EL PAÍS this Tuesday together with a group of international journalists, believes that the vaccine is a true continental “success story” in which the EU has ended up ahead of the United States, the United Kingdom and Israel, with whom the comparisons were odious at first. Breton affirms in a positive tone that we are lucky to be Europeans, although he emphasizes that it is still necessary to continue working and visit the capitals of the lagging countries to see what is failing and how to improve the strategy with them."We don't have many of these cases either," he stresses, "most countries have done extremely well."
Breton recognizes, on the other hand, that Brussels will have to face in the coming months a moral and health dilemma: the inoculation of the third dose among Europeans when in the poorest countries vaccination rates remain at ridiculous figures for the moment. About 80% of world vaccines have gone to the highest income countries. "We must continue to support directly so that everyone on the planet is vaccinated," concludes the French commissioner. "This is a pandemic, and the way to stop it is to vaccinate as many people as possible as soon as possible." The World Health Organization has already demanded from the richest countries a moratorium on the injection of the booster dose, although the head of the organization in Europe opened the door to inoculate vulnerable groups.The debate will probably be one of the protagonists of this fall.
