Europe’s reckless caution over AstraZeneca

The first smear campaign against AstraZeneca, when Emmanuel Macron falsely claimed at the start of the year that the jab was ‘quasi–ineffective’ in over-65s, did serious damage to public confidence in the Oxford vaccine across Europe. The latest concerted action by the leaders of Germany, France, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands may have destroyed it altogether. The decision temporarily to ban Astra-Zeneca originated in the German health ministry, which was spooked by reports of cerebral venous sinus thrombosis, and was blindly followed by other European leaders. This is a scandal whose roots are political, not medical, and it will have terrible consequences.

This was never really about blood clots, which is why the temporary ban of Astra-Zeneca was condemned by the World Health Organisation, the European Medicines Agency and anyone familiar with this issue. The UK’s vaccination strategy is now based almost entirely on the AstraZeneca vaccine, with 11 million doses administered so far.