Graphic by Trinity Kendrick ‘21
By Anoushka Kuswaha ’24
Staff Writer
Since early 2021, the COVID-19 vaccine rollout in Europe has faced difficulty after difficulty. Certain countries in the bloc, such as Spain, went so far as to partially suspend immunizations due to a shortage of doses.
The European Commission, the European Union’s executive branch, signed contracts for over 2.3 billion vaccine doses from several companies weeks after the U.S. and Britain had arranged such deals for their own countries. The companies’ lack of preparation to expand their plants to meet the gargantuan global demand for the COVID-19 vaccine partially caused the shortage. Additionally, the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca has been unable to meet its quarterly delivery goals for the European bloc because of production issues. This makes the European Commission’s goal of vaccinating 70 percent of the European Union’s adult population by the summer seem unrealistic.
The initial vaccine shortage and subsequent slow rollout caused panic at the highest levels of the European Commission. At first, the region took on the controversial measure of attempting to block vaccine exports from the EU into the United Kingdom via Northern Ireland. The bloc was rebuked by the United Kingdom, Ireland and the World Health Organization.
This public feud and unusually aggressive display by Europe toward its former member caused the European Commission’s president, Ursula von der Leyen, to come under fire. It also brought into the limelight the stark difference between Europe’s efforts and the state of the vaccine rollout across the Channel. The United Kingdom was the first country to approve the Pfizer vaccine, and the U.K. has since administered at least one dose to more than 20 million people, compared with more than 75 million single doses of the vaccine administered in the U.S.
However, a more serious issue is Europeans’ refusal en masse of non-Pfizer/BioNTech or Moderna vaccines due to lack of faith in the effectiveness of the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine. This was bolstered by European leaders initially expressing false skepticism of those vaccines due to anger over AstraZeneca’s perceived lack of willingness to meet its contractual obligations. AstraZeneca had a very public feud with the European Commission and members of the EU — including French President Emmanuel Macron, who falsely claimed that the company’s vaccine, produced in conjunction with Oxford, was “quasi-ineffective on people older than 65, some say those 60 years or older.” This comment furthered skepticism and refusal of vaccines amongst an already wary public. Leaders across the bloc have since attempted, to very little avail, to revoke their skepticism in a scramble to convince their citizens that the vaccine is safe.
Despite vaccine distribution issues abroad, at present, it appears likely that Mount Holyoke students residing in Europe will be vaccinated sooner than those living on campus. According to the Massachusetts Department of Health, higher education workers and administrators, as well as members of the general public that are not listed in Phases 1 and 2, will receive vaccines in Phase 3, which will launch in April 2021. In an interview with Mount Holyoke News, a Health Services official said that updates regarding vaccine distribution would be shared through the weekly MHC This Week email.