He insisted, in future, European leaders should listen to their scientific advisors the same way Britain has.
Mr Swarbrick said: Europe is set to approve AstraZeneca for the over 65s, in the coming weeks. What is your personal view in how that has been handled?
Mr Read replied: I think the European politicians made a grave mistake.
EU made grave mistake delaying AstraZeneca vaccine as member states backtrack (Image: LBC)
EU news: EU member states Germany and France are expected to begin using the AstraZeneca vaccine on the over-65s in their population (Image: Getty) Our politicians don t make scientific judgments on vaccine efficacy and I expect the EU s politicians to do the same thing.
Pfizer this week delivered 4.8 million doses of its Covid vaccine, which is developed alongside German partner BioNTech, to the EU.
This means the EU has taken delivery of around 28 million doses of the two-shot jab, EU officials told the Reuters news agency.
But the bloc is still 10 million doses short of what Pfizer was said to have promised to member states since the rollout began late last year.
EU sources say Pfizer committed to delivering around 3.5 million doses a week from the start of January.
EU received 10 million fewer coronavirus vaccines from Pfizer than expecred (Image: GETTY)
Ursula von der Leyen is the EU Commission s President (Image: GETTY)
FRANCE has warned the European Union could punish vaccine giant AstraZeneca if the firm is found to have prioritised its contract to deliver jabs to Britain over the bloc.
| UPDATED: 11:48, Mon, Feb 1, 2021
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The European Commission President led a small task force of officials, mainly from her own team, to draw up the plans in relative secrecy. The blueprint was circulated to her entire team of commissioners only 30 minutes before they were due to approve it. Within minutes of being published online on Friday, the export ban drew criticism for its dramatic attempt to tear up the Brexit divorce deal and impose a hard border on the island of Ireland to prevent vaccines leaking into Britain.