Header Ads

Vaccine troubles

March 16, 2021

The European Union is tying itself in knots over Covid-19 vaccines.

The bloc has been battling for weeks to get AstraZeneca to honor its commitment to supply hundreds of millions of shots, stirring up resentment in the U.K., where it was developed.

It's also complicating efforts to revive the relationship with Washington, which is refusing appeals to release millions of Astra shots that the U.S. still hasn't approved for use.

Yesterday, Germany, France and Italy announced they were halting the use of AstraZeneca anyway, citing concerns about blood clots — though the numbers so far are minuscule.

Germany has seen seven cases out of more than 1.6 million people who've received the Astra inoculation. The European drug regulator last week cited 30 cases out of 5 million shots. Astra says it's seen fewer clotting cases among those who've been vaccinated than you'd expect in the general population.

By contrast, Covid-19 has killed about 2% of those who've caught it in Europe.

As vaccination programs in the U.K. and U.S. advance, Europeans are getting angry.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel saw her party slump to its worst-ever results in two state elections on Sunday, while Prime Minister Mario Draghi shuttered schools across Italy this week with little preparation for parents, ending the honeymoon period of his month-old government.

The biggest fallout could come in France, where the nationalist Marine Le Pen has capitalized on President Emmanuel Macron's struggles to come within touching distance in opinion polls, just over a year before an election.

As the controversy deepens, the political and economic costs are mounting. — Ben Sills

Visitors at the Brussels Expo Vaccination Center on March 5.

Photographer: Olivier Matthys/Bloomberg

Check out all our biggest stories on the Bloomberg Politics web page here and tell us how we're doing or what we're missing at balancepower@bloomberg.net.

Global Headlines

Horse-trading | The fate of President Joe Biden's planned multi-year infrastructure package may depend on whether Republicans accept a procedure that allows lawmakers to tie funding in appropriations bills to specific projects in their home state or district. As Erik Wasson and Emily Wilkins explain, so-called earmarks, once derided as pork-barrel politics, could allow the kind of trading between legislators that maximizes bipartisan support.

Warning shot | Top U.S. envoys on a mission to rally Asian allies around a common approach toward China are facing a more immediate security concern. Just hours before Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin met their Japanese counterparts on their first overseas trip, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's sister, Kim Yo Jong, told the new team in Washington to avoid "causing a stink."

  • Prime Minister Boris Johnson will redirect British foreign policy toward the Indo-Pacific as he sets out a sweeping overhaul of international priorities after Brexit.

Turning screws | President Xi Jinping warned China will go after so-called "platform" companies that have amassed data and market power, a sign its crackdown on the internet sector is just beginning.

  • Beijing wants Alibaba to sell media assets including the South China Morning Post, concerned by the tech giant's influence over public opinion. Meanwhile, encrypted messaging app Signal appears to have been blocked in China.
  • Chinese startup ByteDance has begun hiring for a possible push into semiconductors, expanding beyond the hit video app TikTok.

A newsstand in Hong Kong today.

Photographer: Lam Yik/Bloomberg

'Against the wall' | Middle-income countries such as Colombia and South Africa urgently need vaccines to revive their economies and escape the pandemic after suffering tens of thousands of deaths. But they must do so with health spending that's been stretched for years. Health-care advocates say drug makers have the upper hand in negotiations with governments that, as James Paton and Andrea Jaramillo report, have limited cash and aren't eligible for free doses.

Brazilian shuffle | President Jair Bolsonaro replaced General Eduardo Pazuello as health minister after record new cases of Covid-19 and a swelling death toll added pressure on Brazil to bring the pandemic under control. Cardiologist Marcelo Queiroga will become the fourth person to lead the Health Ministry after two predecessors left amid disagreements with Bolsonaro over social distancing and unproven treatments against the virus.

What to Watch

  • The domestic and global landscapes have radically changed as Israel holds parliamentary elections for the fourth time in two years on March 23.

  • Hong Kong required all staff from the U.S. consulate to take Covid-19 tests after two workers were infected and admitted to the hospital for isolation and treatment.

  • Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte is running for a fourth term tomorrow on a platform that includes a clamp down on tax evasion, betting that voters are inching to the left on socio-economic issues.

We're launching a newsletter about the future of cars, written by Bloomberg reporters around the world. Be one of the first to sign up to get it in your inbox soon.

And finally ... The Rand Corporation is among a small but growing group of research organizations, universities and at least one European government that have started gaming out the gritty geopolitical implications of a world dominated by green energy. Oil is set to be with us for some time but, as Marc Champion explains, it's the latest sign that the once quaint idea of renewable energy displacing fossil fuels has gone mainstream.

Rand has been designing war games with the Pentagon since the 1950s.

Photographer: Leonard McCombe/The Life Picture Collection




 
 

Like Balance of Power? Get unlimited access to Bloomberg.com, where you'll find trusted, data-based journalism in 120 countries around the world and expert analysis from exclusive daily newsletters.
 

Post a Comment

No comments

Subscribe to: Post Comments ( Atom )