In the European Union, 70% of the adult population has undergone the full vaccination cycle, said the head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen.
“70% of adults in the EU are fully vaccinated. I want to thank the many people who made this great achievement possible, ”wrote the head of the European Commission on her Twitter.
“But we have to move on! We need more Europeans to get vaccinated. And we need to help the rest of the world get vaccinated as well, ”she added.
70% of adults in EU are fully vaccinated.
I want to thank the many people making this great achievement possible.
But we must go further!
We need more Europeans to vaccinate. And we need to help the rest of the world vaccinate, too.
We'll continue supporting our partners. pic.twitter.com/VxdvZlrwYv
— Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen) August 31, 2021
Von der Leyen reported on July 27 that 70% of EU citizens have already received their first dose of vaccination. At that time, 57% of EU citizens were fully vaccinated. “The Indian strain of the delta coronavirus is very dangerous. I urge everyone who can get vaccinated, ”she wrote then.
The head of the European Commission announced the start of mass vaccination against coronavirus infection on December 17, it began in all EU countries on December 27-29. On December 16, speaking at the plenary session of the European Parliament, von der Leyen said that vaccination in the European Union should be carried out in a coordinated manner. “To defeat the pandemic, we need to vaccinate up to 70% of the population. This is a very difficult challenge, let's start vaccination together, all 27 countries, in one day, ”she said then. “In total, we have purchased more than enough doses of vaccine to vaccinate everyone in Europe, and we will be able to support our neighbors and partners around the world,” said the head of the EC.
However, the vaccination campaign faced an acute shortage of vaccines. A month later, on January 27, none of the countries of the union had even 4% of the population vaccinated. Among the leaders – Denmark and Slovenia – this indicator was 3.7 and 2.9%, respectively.
Brussels signed contracts centrally on behalf of the 27 EU countries, six manufacturers were supposed to supply vaccines: BioNTech-Pfizer (USA – Germany), AstraZeneca (Sweden – UK), Sanofi-GSK (France – UK), Johnson & Johnson (USA), CureVac (Germany), Moderna (USA).
Part of the vaccine shortage was due to delays in procurement and regulatory approval. In the UK and the US, regulators have granted emergency vaccine approval and have taken responsibility in the event that something goes wrong. However, the EU, on the contrary, insisted on going through all the procedures as planned. AstraZeneca faced production problems, two months behind its delivery schedule. Sanofi-GSK only in May 2021 announced the transition to the third phase of trials, the development of the CureVac vaccine ended in failure.
According to the initial plans of the European Commission, 70% of EU citizens should be vaccinated and herd immunity should have been achieved by April 2021. On July 10, von der Leyen said the European Union has already received enough doses of vaccines to vaccinate at least 70% of the adult population against COVID-19 by the end of July.
