Vaccine shambles – bad times for the EU
There Are Bad Times Just Around The Corner. A great Noel Coward song for today. Europe is waking up. Jupiter Macron and Muttering Mutti were wrong about AstraZeneca. The Oxford vaccine has finally been authorised for the over 65s. The evidence of efficacy is overwhelming. The Rosbifs were right all along. Zut, alors!
But the reversal comes late for an EU whose vaccine policy is a shambles. A Covid third wave looks increasingly likely to force more national lockdowns. The adverse impact on the rate of recovery from post-Covid recession across the member states will be inevitable. Deficits and debt as percentages of GDP are set to soar even further. Based on 2020 figures not a single Eurozone state now meets the criteria for joining the single currency in the first place. There is worse to come.
Vaccine rates as a percentage of population across the EU are staggering – ranging from 6.3 per cent (France) to 8.6 per cent (Poland). The UK rate is 29.3 per cent. Evidence is emerging that, 90 per cent immunity aside, vaccines lessen the rate of spread – hacking down that bellwether “R” number to below one. A US Johns Hopkins study has found the severity of symptoms is reduced for those who do slip through the immunity net, by 95 per cent. Being slow out of the vaccine starting blocks is costing the EU population dear.
Unlike in the US, in Europe there is little sign of playing catch up. US vaccine rates currently match struggling Europe’s – 8.2 per cent of the population as of the end February. But having woken from a hydroxychloroquine-induced slumber, the roll-out programme across the US is, well, rolling. On 15 February only 4.57 per cent of the population had received two shots. That number almost doubled in two weeks and is storming towards a total coverage target by the end of May.
They’re nervous in France and Germany
von der Leyen is down the drain,
They’re filled with wrath
As they do the math
And the failures are perfectly plain
The EU vaccine purchasing escape committee is now in session. Germany, Hungary and Slovakia have already ordered vaccines outside of the EU procurement system. Austria, Denmark and Poland are planning to jump ship, too. The petulant attempts of Brussels and Ursula von der Leyen, the EU President, to monopolise vaccine validation and supply have cost lives.
In France, the combination of slow vaccine roll-out and a stubborn determination to muddle through a third wave rather than reimpose lockdowns is inviting a car crash. France has 4,069 intensive care beds. Today 3,544 are occupied. Rates of acute hospital admissions are rising. Some departments are hitting alarm thresholds. The meltdown recently avoided in the UK’s NHS looks unstoppable across the Channel.
Positive Covid tests in France now run at 7.3 per cent, the highest number since last November’s peak. Nice is already in weekend lockdown. Expect that to be extended to Paris and other urban conurbations soon. Evening curfews have been tightened from 8:00pm to 6:00pm. Booked that first scheduled EasyJet flight for a Paris break on 16 April? Good luck.
Variants are on the rampage, seemingly out of control. The South African and Brazil variants are over 10 per cent in eleven departments. In Moselle they are 54 per cent. The Kent variant accounts for 53 per cent of all cases. Macron’s bravura refusal to heed the advice of his Conseil Scientifique, to clamp down on movement to head off another spike, now looks a bad call. He is being forced to act, but too late.
In Germany new cases dipped from a seven-day average of 25,000 in late December to 7,000 in mid-February, but are, worryingly, spiking again; 11,393 new cases on 4 March. In the UK the comparable figures are 59,937 on 9 January, dropping consistently to 6,685 now and on a downward vector. Vaccination and lockdown measures have pulled Britain’s fat out of the fire.
Elsewhere in the EU lockdown is working, too. Portugal reimposed curfews, closures and restrictions on travel after a disastrous Christmas splurge of infection. The lack of control forced Spain to close land borders, which remain shut today. A seven-day average peak of 12,891 new cases on 18 January was slashed to 816 by 4 March. Boris Johnson has been patronisingly mocked for “following the data, not dates”, but across Europe those in the “data” camp, like Portugal, are proving him right.
In Rome the melancholia
Is deeper than tongue can tell,
In Monaco
All the croupiers know
They haven’t a hope in Hell
In Italy, Covid and finances are spiralling out of control. The seven-day infection rate average peaked on 15 November at 34,775, dropped to 11,913 on 14 February, but roared back to 18,669 by 4 March. Mario Draghi, the technocrat prime minister called in to replace squabbling politicos has descended to name-calling, threatening to “suffocate” AstraZeneca, banning 250,000 vaccine doses bought by Australia.
Meantime, government debt soared to 155 per cent of GDP in 2020. Continuing EU support – in effect, Germany – may become elusive to secure as nation states in the EU look to their own interests. Don’t bet on Italy being bailed out, yet again.
There are bad times just around the corner
And the outlook’s absolutely vile,
The Covid bug hits Chancellors
From Paris to Berlin
But we’re not going to tighten our belts and smile, smile, smile,
Voters will be unforgiving when they find belts have to be tightened after all. Having been consistently reassured by leaders like Macron and Merkel that the pandemic is under control and further lockdown measures would merely delay the recovery, there will be hell to pay from electors when they face the inevitable double penalties of higher taxation and squeezed public spending that a needlessly prolonged pandemic makes inevitable. The seismic impact of their wrath will be felt nationally and in Brussels. Already Marine Le Pen is running neck and neck with Macron in French polls.
Noel Coward always tweaked his lyrics to suit his audience. In 1955 There are Bad Times Just Around the Corner was handily adapted for his Las Vegas audience. Too bad he’s no longer around to schedule a gig in Brussels anytime soon.