https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2021/02/03/vaccine-fiasco-marks-beginning-end-eu-says-farage/Vaccine Fiasco Marks ‘Beginning of End of EU’, Says FarageEuropean media has continued to criticise Commission President Ursula von der Leyen for leading the EU’s failing vaccination programme. Only around three per cent of the EU27’s population is inoculated on average. In contrast, Brexit Britain, which signed contracts with drugs firms such as AstraZeneca months before Brussels, has protected more than 14 per cent of its inhabitants.
Refusing to consider resigning as the head of the bloc’s powerful executive arm, von der Leyen’s management style varies between blaming her suppliers, threatening to impose borders and blocking exports, to alleging that Europe should be proud that it’s months behind the UK in vaccinating vulnerable people, implying that Britain had compromised safety with its own vaccination programme.
Some of the exports the EU is threatening to block is the Pfizer vaccine that von der Leyen is implying might not be safe. The UK approved the Pfizer vaccine on 21/2/2020; the US approved it on 12/12; the EU approved it on 12/21 (so it was safe, after all!). While the EU had a purchase contract in place before the Moderna vaccine was approved, that approval came January 6, 2021.
What actually happened is that the UK's approval committee reviewed data as it became available rather starting review when all the data was submitted. That's what the US FDA did, costing the US nearly two weeks of distribution time. The EU apparently made that inefficient mistake plus having in place a complex delay-inducing multinational process.
The OP article suggests that the EU also began purchase negotiations with Pfizer late, and there was some haggling, time wasted. IIRC, the US signed its 100M dose purchase (plus an option for another 300M or 400M doses) contract with Pfizer in late July.
