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- Saturday marked the day the first coronavirus vaccines were launched in Europe.
- The European Medicines Agency approved a vaccine from Pfizer and BioNTech on Monday, joining the US and UK in doing so.
- The EMA has taken much longer to approve the vaccine, and the European Commission and EU governments have lobbied the EMA to work faster, Reuters reported.
- Each country has been assigned a maximum of 10,000 doses each as part of the first shipment.
- Visit the Business Insider home page for more stories.
Europe has started receiving its first doses of the coronavirus vaccine.
On Monday, the European Medicines Agency approved the vaccine from Pfizer and BioNTech, joining the US and UK in doing so, after a lengthy delay.
The doses of the vaccine were manufactured in Belgium and shipped across the European Union on Friday evening.
Of the first batch, the 27 EU member states are generally limited to 10,000 doses each, The Associated Press reported.
“The good news is here for Christmas,” Jens Spahn, the German health minister, said on Saturday.
“At the moment, trucks are running in Europe, in Germany and its regions, to deliver the first vaccine.”
“This vaccine is the decisive key to ending this pandemic,” he said.
This is what the moment looked like across Europe.
