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According to “Spiegel”, in summer not enough vaccine could be produced to vaccinate at least 60 percent of EU residents.
Berlin / Brussels. The EU could have ordered too late and too few corona vaccines and missed the attempt to vaccinate 60 percent or more of people by the summer to achieve at least rudimentary herd immunity: this was reported by the “Spiegel” on Sunday.
The reason given was, for example, that the EU Commission had ordered fewer cans from manufacturers like Biontech / Pfizer in autumn than they were offering. According to Spiegel, the EU has so far ordered 1.3 billion cans from six companies. Germany, for example, is entitled to about 250 million of these. Thanks to new orders, that jumped to more than 300 million over the weekend, a Health Ministry spokesman said, and about 136 million was enough to achieve herd immunity in Germany (most vaccines require two vaccines) .
However, according to “Spiegel”, currently only deliveries from the German-American consortium Biontech / Pfizer and the American company Moderna are insured. As it stands, Biontech / Pfizer will only be able to deliver 45 million cans to Germany around June, Moderna 15 million, for a total of 60 million cans. Additional deliveries were still pending (at least) to four other companies, and only small quantities may be delivered for the summer.
Furthermore, there were problems with these: British-Swedish manufacturer AstraZeneca, for example, delivered disappointing clinical data on its vaccine, French company Sanofi postponed application for approval until late 2021, and German Curevac vaccine is not expected until summer. .
New vaccine factories
From the EU Commission, where new orders had actually been placed or “options” exercised in recent days, it was said that they had intentionally asked as many manufacturers as possible to have a wide range of active ingredients. And suppliers are working to expand their capabilities, for example Biontech with a new factory in Marburg (Hesse). (ag./red)
