'We took things for granted': EU admits poor decision-making led to vaccine rollout delay

European Commission chief Ursula Von der Leyen asked member states to draw lessons from mistake made while combating pandemic and during rollout of vaccines. Von der Leyen admitted that bloc was "late" in granting authorisation and "overly optimistic" about mass production and distribution, which led to a major setback in EU's vaccine rollout plan followed by pharmaceutical companies reporting delays in production. 

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" fact is that today we are t where we want to be in combating virus. We were late in granting authorisation. We were too optimistic about mass production. And maybe we also took for granted that doses ordered would actually arrive on time. We must ask ourselves why, and what lessons we can draw from it," Von der Leyen said in her speech at European Parliament Plenary on state of play of EU's COVID-19 Vaccination Strategy. 

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'Igred production' 

Von der Leyen said that lesson that needs to be drawn is bloc was too concerned about development of vaccine that it igred to prepare for mass production, which led to a slow-down in vaccine distribution across Europe. A major row broke-out between EU and pharmaceutical companies last month after Pfizer and AstraZeneca reported delays in production due to issues at European sites. EU accused se companies of diverting ir share of doses to or nations, which companies categorically dismissed.

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delay caused several countries to make changes in ir vaccination programmes. Italy even threatened pharmaceutical firms with legal action. EU imposed export restrictions on medical products in wake of delays in order to prevent companies from diverting ir share of vaccines to or parties. However, EU later ackwledged that delay was genuine and was caused due to issues at its sites. 

"Ar lesson to be drawn concerns mass production of vaccines. We were all highly focused on development of vaccine – and rightly so. But overall we have underestimated difficulties inherent in mass production. That is why we have set up – under leadership of Thierry Breton (our Internal Market Commissioner) – a task force whose job is to step up industrial production of vaccines," Von der Leyen said.  

EC President took opportunity to highlight that over 17 million people have been vaccinated across Europe since late December 2020, when bloc approved its first COVID-19 vaccine for mass distribution. Von der Leyen said that a total of 26 million doses of vaccines have been distributed to European nations so far, adding bloc plans to vaccinate about 70% of adult population by end of summer.  

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