BRUSSELS – There was little effort to mask the gloating, just one month after Britain's full — and, at times, tempestuous — divorce from the European Union.
In big bold type, the vaccination table produced by Prime Minister Boris Johnson's Conservative party showed that the U.K. had administered more jabs than the EU's four biggest countries combined.
The implication was clear: Britain had been right to make the momentous decision of leaving the bloc. It also indicated how, beyond the medical complexity, the humanitarian needs and the personal pain felt across the continent, the pandemic is also an intense political fight.