Europe’s Vaccine Suspension May Be Driven as Much by Politics as Science (Published 2021)
Once it became clear Germany was pausing, the pressure mounted on other governments to hold off as well, out of fear of seeming incautious and for the sake of a united front.
Once Germany hit pause, the pressure mounted on other governments to do the same, lest public opinion punish them if they seemed incautious by comparison, and for the sake of a united European front.
It appears increasingly clear that the suspensions have as much to do with political considerations as scientific ones.
“There is an emotional situation that is the fallout from this case that started in Germany,” Giorgio Palù, the president of Italy’s Medicines Agency said on Tuesday. He said: “There is no danger. There is no correlation at the epidemiological level.”
The agency’s director was more explicit.
“It was a political choice,” Nicola Magrini, the director, told La Repubblica newspaper on Monday, saying that Italy suspended the administration of the AstraZeneca vaccine because other European countries had decided to do so.
European countries have not been weighing a decision about just any vaccine. Their concerns center on AstraZeneca, a company with which they have had poisonous relations since it drastically scaled back projected vaccine deliveries for the early part of 2021.
That spat prompted the European Union to tighten rules on the export of those shots and others from factories within the bloc. And it deepened a longstanding distrust of the vaccine among some European health officials. The bloc was slow to authorize the vaccine, waiting until a month after Britain had done so.
The chief motivation was political.
France, too, appeared to bow to pressure to act in unison with its powerful neighbors. It had been relying on the AstraZeneca vaccine to catch up on vaccinations after its glacial start, and Olivier Véran, France’s health minister, had said only days ago said there was “no reason to suspend.”
But after Germany made its intentions clear — and public — Mr. Macron had a choice between following suit or being an outlier. And so on Tuesday, Mr. Véran changed his tune. France, he told Parliament, had to “listen to Europe, listen to all the European countries.”
That was the sort of thing Mr. Speranza, Italy’s health minister, expected might happen after he spoke with his counterpart in Germany, in a discussion recounted by an Italian official with knowledge of it.
When Mr. Speranza brought the issue to Prime Minister Draghi, he noted the unbearable public pressure Italy would face if it alone used a vaccine considered too dangerous for Europe.
