Europe is in a race against time. While the early rollout of the vaccine has been beset by difficulties, it is expected to pick up dramatically from March.
But the arrival of more infectious Covid variants is threatening to extinguish the hopes associated with mass vaccination. "[EU] countries' curves are either flat or increasing, so we are at a critical stage," says a senior EU official. "The key bottleneck [for mass vaccinations] will be in a few weeks time." The rollout hit two serious setbacks this week.
On Friday, it emerged there would be a shortfall in the volumes of AstraZeneca's "game-changer" vaccine due to reduced yields in the manufacturing process.