EU Scrambles to Buy Pfizer Vaccine After Declining Earlier Deal

The EU has decided to buy up to 100 million more doses of Pfizer and BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine after turning down an opportunity in July for a much bigger deal for 500 million doses, according to EU officials and an internal document seen by Reuters. Panicking European Commission officials are now racing to reverse that calamitous decision.

Unexpected delays in clinical trials are forcing the EU to rely on shots from Pfizer/BioNTech, the first Covid-19 vaccine to be approved in Britain and subsequently the US, which frustratingly for EU states still has not been approved in the EU. Even so the European Commission decided yesterday to buy up to 100 million additional doses. The virus has already killed 470,000 Europeans.

The British media was quick to criticise Kate Bingham‘s nimble procurement efforts and keen to allege conflicts of interest arising from her industry experience. In retrospect she did a brilliant job. Yet not a word has Guido seen in the British press about the lives lost as a result of the complete shambles that has been EU procurement, of first PPE and now vaccines…

* This article was originally published by Guido Fawkes