We could all pay the price for the EU’s foolish vaccine nationalism

I’m a card carrying, Europe-loving, wishy-washy centre-left liberal. It therefore pains me to point this out: the EU in general, Ursula von der Leyen specifically, and some of the prominent European leaders such as Emmanuel Macron are getting policy and messaging on vaccines badly wrong. They need to urgently ditch the peacock displays of tribal politics. The French president, in particular, who leads one of the most vaccine sceptical western nations, should not have so publicly questioned the efficacy of what has clearly turned out to be a vaccine that is working in the fight against Covid-19. The consequences of their words could well be long-lasting.

‘The early results we have are not encouraging,’ said Macron earlier this month, referring to the vaccine effects for 60 to 65-year-olds. His words were premature at the time and look even more so now, in the wake of fantastic data showing the effects of the ChAdOx and Pfizer vaccines in the real world, with around a 94 per cent and 85 per cent reduction in hospitalisations.