Germany is the latest country to suspend the Oxford-AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine over concerns about possible side effects. The Netherlands and Ireland have taken similar steps. So too has Denmark, Norway, Bulgaria and Iceland, while Italy and Austria have halted the use of certain batches of the drug as a precautionary measure.
Britain has done many things wrong in its handling of the pandemic, but it has done one thing well: the rollout of the jab. It’s the one place where we have useful lessons to teach the world in Covid-19. Europe, in particular, does not appear to be listening.
Vaccine programmes as ambitious as the one needed now require joined-up international co-ordination and action. These latest delays to the rollout spells bad news for Britain – and miserable news for Europe and the rest of the world.
What reasonable member of the public wouldn’t watch this and have some lingering doubts?
Fears over pulmonary emboli sparked the decisions to stop the vaccine rollouts.
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