Ursula von der Leyen: EU has "had enough of being the scapegoat"

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Ursula von der Leyen defended herself in front of journalists on Monday against the sharp criticism of the EU vaccination policy - and again attacked the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca.

The EU Commission has had enough of "being the scapegoat," said von der Leyen in Brussels.

The news agency "Bloomberg" and the "Daily Express" report.

"If you look at the rest of the world, we are doing very well with the vaccinations - and the vaccination rates are increasing," emphasized the EU Commission President, even if only around nine percent of the EU population has received a vaccination.

The fact that it doesn't go any faster is not due to the EU, but to the manufacturers.

It is time for the anger of the member states to be directed against them.

It is primarily AstraZeneca's responsibility to “organize its deliveries,” von der Leyen said.

So far, the company has only delivered ten percent of the guaranteed amount in the first quarter of 2021.

The EU has "a problem with the fact that vaccination doses produced in Europe are delivered elsewhere".

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Therefore, she is supporting Italy in preventing the export of AstraZeneca vaccines to Australia.

So far, the EU has received 10.7 million vaccine doses from AstraZeneca, according to the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control.

Pfizer and Moderna, on the other hand, would work hard to meet their promised delivery quantities, according to von der Leyen.

The corona vaccinations in Germany are expected to pick up speed this month and take place at the beginning of April, especially in doctors' practices.

The federal and state ministers agreed on the vaccination start by the resident doctors in around four weeks at the health ministerial conference on Monday, as the dpa news agency in Berlin learned from participants.

According to the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians (KBV), 75,000 general practitioners and specialists are available in Germany for vaccination.

Vice Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) said on ZDF: "We have to vaccinate millions every week." This was already in effect at the end of March.

“There will be up to ten million vaccinations per week.” According to Commission chief von der Leyen, the EU states will receive 100 million vaccine doses every month from April.

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In Germany, the vaccine is supposed to be delivered to doctors' practices in the normal way via wholesalers and pharmacies.

The bureaucratic effort for the practices should be reduced to a minimum, it said.

The vaccination centers are to remain in place for the time being.

Agreed appointments there should be retained.

According to the Federal Ministry of Health, 2.5 million people in Germany had been fully vaccinated by Sunday.

That's three percent of the population.

5.2 million people have received at least one dose of vaccine.

Von der Leyen mentioned the number of 100 million vaccine doses from various manufacturers in April in the “Stuttgarter Zeitung” and the “Stuttgarter Nachrichten”.

The EU Commission President pointed out that this will be twice as much as in March.

However, the information is somewhat more cautious than previous estimates.

It was said that the expected 300 million vaccine doses could be added to deliveries from the manufacturer Johnson & Johnson in the second quarter.

In any case, much more vaccine is forecast to be available soon.

In mathematical terms, Germany receives almost a fifth of the EU vaccination doses, which means almost 20 million doses per month in the future.

According to the KBV, up to five million vaccinations a week could be carried out if 50,000 doctor's offices administered 20 vaccine doses each day.

If there is enough vaccine, according to model calculations by the KBV, it may be possible to create full vaccination protection for the entire population on August 1st.