Covid

You have to admire Hungary’s chutzpah. Not only has it bypassed Brussels to pursue its own vaccine procurement strategy, it is also backing two of the most controversial horses in the race: Russia’s Sputnik V and China’s Sinopharm jab. It has just secured enough Sinopharm doses to vaccinate 250,000 people a month while its Sputnik V deal will mean 1 million Hungarians are vaccinated – a tenth of the population. The Sputnik V vaccine may start being rolled out as soon as next week. Hungary’s strategy may appear reckless but its hand has been somewhat forced by EU policy, which prohibitively states that individual member states may only enter into negotiations with vaccine suppliers who are not in talks with the EU.

After the EU’s vaccine distribution disaster, German lawmakers are now taking a closer look at Russia’s Sputnik V jab. If approved by EU regulators, Sputnik V could be the fourth vaccine available in the bloc after the BioNTech-Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca vaccines. It’s easy to see why Germany could be tempted by the Sputnik V vaccine. The rollout of the BioNTech-Pfizer and Moderna jabs has been hampered by delivery delays and political blunders. And European regulators have remained wary of AstraZeneca’s vaccine – a scepticism that was solidified by a recent trial showing that the shot may not significantly reduce the risk of mild or moderate disease caused by the 501Y.V2 variant, also known as the South African strain.

Every time I read another excitable media article about New Zealand’s prime minister Jacinda Ardern, I am reminded of an old quip: ‘Viewed from a distance, everything is beautiful.’ That was Publius Cornelius Tacitus (AD 58-120). Were this Roman intellectual and historian alive today, he would make a great New York Times columnist. His tactic was to spin political and historical analogies so they could influence public affairs back home. Tacitus’s Germania, for example, was about framing the Germanic tribes as a noble culture so that his Roman compatriots would recognize their own society as corrupt and decadent in contrast. The only problem was that Tacitus had never crossed the Rhine. That did not matter much: most Romans had not traveled far north either.

Emmanuel Macron has become the pantomime villain for much of the British press after his hissy fit last week in which he questioned the efficacy of the AstraZeneca jab. It was the latest in a series of snipes at the British that has made the French president the scourge of Fleet Street. 'Bargain-basement Bonaparte,' was how the Daily Mail described Macron, while the Sun plumped for 'pint-sized egomaniac'. He's none too popular among his own people, either, the figurehead of the French failure to be the only member of the UN Security Council incapable of producing their own vaccine. No wonder a recent opinion poll suggested Marine Le Pen is a stronger threat than ever ahead of next year's presidential election. But the president of France should be lauded for one triumph.

Countries around the world are in a race against time to vaccinate their populations against Covid-19. But there is one particular region which appears to have a growing problem with vaccine scepticism: Central and Eastern Europe. As a British expat living in the Czech Republic, I have noticed the lack of eagerness with which many Czechs discuss the vaccine rollout. This may in part be due to the country’s floundering and much-criticised vaccination programme. But it is noticeable that anti-vaccine sentiment is more common – and gets much more attention – here than in the UK. Ex-President Václav Klaus recently told a large anti-lockdown rally in Prague that vaccines are not the solution to the virus.

After the EU’s behaviour last week, no one can be under any illusion about how nationalistic the pandemic has now become. Even before the EU attempted to halt vaccine supplies destined for Britain, the scrabble to secure enough doses had become reminiscent of the cold war. It wasn’t for nothing that the Russians named their vaccine ‘Sputnik’ – a reference to the satellite they launched in 1957 during the space race. Nor was it by chance that the Scottish government appeared to find it so difficult to say the word ‘Oxford’ when talking about the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine. But these sorts of political tiffs are just the beginning. Now that vaccinations are underway across the West, focus is beginning to shift onto future supply.

The EU is arguably playing a self-harming game in potentially restricting vaccine exports to the UK as a tit for tat for the inability of AstraZeneca to supply the 80 million doses it ordered by the end of March. First of all, this looks like unedifying EU sour grapes that the UK, out of the EU, moved earlier to place vaccine contracts and will soon be self-sufficient in vaccines. Second, it risks damaging the reputation of the EU as a place where multinationals can securely invest, because it is blowing up the supply chains of two big American companies with EU operations, Pfizer and Moderna. The UK, desperate for inward investment, will look relatively more attractive as a haven for foreign capital.

France is having a torrid pandemic with a succession of failures, from PPE equipment to vaccine invention, a stalled vaccination programme and now interminable and frustrating hesitation over a third lockdown. But we, and the French, should focus on the many things they do get right. Traducing Mark Antony’s speech to the Romans, it is time to praise France not to bury her. The ninth French-organised Vendée Globe – the world’s most gruelling 80-day, round the world solo yacht race – drew to a close in the small hours last night at Sables d’Olonne in the Vendée in western France. Its competitors, overwhelmingly French, have provided a dazzling example of the best of sport.