| So this is what vaccine nationalism looks like. Tempers are flaring in Europe over scarce supplies of Covid shots, with governments targeting pharma giant AstraZeneca because of delayed shipments. Officials have proposed an export notification system, or even restrictions on shipments from plants in the European Union to countries outside the bloc. A meeting Wednesday evening in Brussels between the British drugmaker and EU officials failed to resolve the problem for now. As long as shots are in short supply, and regardless of who's to blame, these kinds of tensions will flare, especially when some countries are racing ahead of others in protecting residents from the pandemic. That dynamic is especially evident in Europe, where the U.K. has given shots to more than 10% of the population, more than three times the rate of the best performer within the EU, Denmark. The U.K.'s de facto Brexit occurred less than a month ago when the country left the EU's single market and customs union, making the matter even more explosive. Prime Minister Boris Johnson desperately needs a political win and wants to make Brexit look like a success; Brussels is equally eager to prevent that from happening, but its sluggish vaccine rollout doesn't help.  Boris Johnson visits a Covid-19 testing laboratory at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital campus in Glasgow on Jan. 28. Photographer: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images The problem for the EU is that it lagged behind the U.K. and the U.S. in buying vaccines, as well as approving them for use. The Astra shot is expected to be cleared by the European Medicines Agency on Friday, but that's a month later than Britain acted. There's a real danger that if European countries that contributed a lot of the science that's gone into the early vaccines and have the means to buy them can't sort out their disputes, vaccine nationalism will get even nastier elsewhere. Some potential solutions are appearing, including pharma giants with spare capacity forming partnerships with vaccine developers to boost production. Novartis is in talks with "a range of players," Chief Executive Officer Vas Narasimhan said in an interview with Bloomberg. Sanofi, whose own vaccine program has stumbled, announced a deal this week to increase output of the shot from Pfizer and BioNTech, and Merck KGaA said it's also speaking with the German biotech firm. . The increased output won't come on stream until later this year, however. In the meantime, the vaccine haves and have-nots need to figure out how to get along.—Eric Pfanner | 
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