EU and AstraZeneca fight over vaccine delays while death toll mounts
A war of words between the European Union and AstraZeneca escalated on Wednesday as the two sides argued in public over coronavirus vaccine delays that threaten the bloc’s fragile recovery from the pandemic.
The dispute began on Monday
when EU officials said they had been told by AstraZeneca that the company intended to supply “considerably fewer” doses in the coming weeks than had been agreed because of production problems.
The European Commission has ordered 400 million doses on behalf of EU member states and is poised to start rolling them out across the bloc once the vaccine is approved, possibly this week.