You have to feel for Germany. After a fraught vaccine procurement process, not only is the government struggling to persuade its citizens to take the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine, but Angela Merkel has now stated that she will not be given the jab on account of her age.
‘I do not belong to the recommended age group for AstraZeneca,’ the German chancellor told Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper. It could well be the final nail in the coffin for an EMA-approved, safe vaccine that has cost her country millions.
Merkel’s view may be aligned with government policy – she is 66 and therefore, under the German rules which state that over 65s should not be given the vaccine, she does not qualify for a dose. But the intransigence of her position is also astonishingly naïve.
Britain, in contrast, has a Queen who is prepared to lead by example
As Britain’s monarch takes to the air to encourage others to follow her lead, surely Merkel should have grasped the PR fallout that her remarks would provoke? As it stands, over half the German population when polled
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