Is the EU playing Russian Roulette with European Lives?

There is no doubt that the UK has done a fantastic job with the Covid-19 vaccination programme and it is clear that this has hit the EU very very hard. The EU has been caught with it’s trousers around it’s ankles and they are now going to do anything to minimise the political damage. The procurement process was well thought out by the UK and we have an amazing infrastructure with the NHS to rapidly implement the vaccine programme. Nearly half of our population has been immunised, in order of risk, which was the right thing to do. We have Tony Blair to thank for the strategy of giving everyone a single shot of the vaccine before going to the second shot and this is working very well. He was the one that pressured the government to reconsider its strategy and he was right. Millions have been vaccinated with no significant safety signals (destroying the arguments raised by the anti-vaxxers) and the recent halting of vaccinations by France, Germany and Italy can be seen in one of two ways; either they are implementing their protocols to ensure patient safety or they are firing political fodder to distract from their failings. If it’s the former, the WHO and the European Medicines Agency have both confirmed that there is no signifiacant signal and that vaccinations should continue. Astrazeneca have confirmed that the number of patients with blood clots in the 17 million people vaccinated (their cohort of data) is below what would be expected normally. Therefore the conclusion is that the Astrazeneca vaccine is safe and there is no reason to delay it’s implementation. The EU need to take a long hard look at it itself, this is not about Brexit (and by the way I was a remainer), this is about peoples lives. We are all in this together and we need to vaccinate as much of the world as soon as possible.