The World This Week: The EU and U.K.'s Vaccine Feud
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One of the issues discussed on Friday’s The World This Week was the escalating—and seemingly endless—disputes between the U.K. and EU in a post-Brexit world.
Their most recent squabble? A blame game over the AstraZeneca vaccine, with the EU threatening to block imports to its former member on grounds that the British haven’t been reciprocating with their own vaccine deliveries to the continent.
“It’s one of many examples of post-Brexit diplomacy, or maybe, lack of diplomacy on the part of Boris Johnson’s government in London,” said Patrick Smith of The Africa Report. “Every single time when it comes to dealing with Europe, the level of point-scoring, as if to seize every opportunity to say ‘Brexit is working; it’s working in Britain’s favor as a nation.’”
TIME magazine’s Vivienna Walt described the vaccine quarrel as one of many “testing moments” with global implications.
“We’re at a moment in time where the world’s institutions are being tested,” she said. “We’re going to be paying the consequences for this for many years.”
The U.K. isn’t the only nation that has been criticized for its AstraZeneca exports—or lack thereof. The U.S. has also faced criticism for stashing away millions of AstraZeneca doses it may not need while developing countries around the world struggle to secure doses.
“I think that it’s insane that we have millions and millions and millions of AstraZeneca doses, just stashed away—that might expire—that we don’t even need,” said The Daily Beast’s Noor Ibrahim.
“We’re on track to meet our May 1st deadline and the U.S. hasn’t even approved AstraZeneca yet. So I think it’s quite disgraceful that we haven’t done more to share the doses. Especially to the countries that need it most.”
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