NB! According to the project of the European Commission, vaccines that are not approved by the European Medicines Agency can be included in the “green passports”, but only if a particular country wants to do so. The European Commission presented its draft on 17 March, when the “Brussels Diary” had already been written.
This week the European Commission will unveil its proposals for the vaccination passport. The idea is simple: those who have been lucky enough to be vaccinated will receive a certificate – a paper or electronic one – and will be able to travel freely throughout the EU during the pandemic. If the European Parliament gives its go-ahead, in three months the so-called “green passport” will be ready – and tourism will be kick-started, and the economy with it.
It would seem like a good thing, but the details are confusing. On 9 March, Bloomberg reported that “green passports” will also be issued to those who were vaccinated with the Russian Sputnik, Chinese Sinovac and other vaccines approved in certain EU countries.
Three days later, European Commissioner for Home Affairs Ylva Johansson told Euronews that this would not happen. The European Commission has decided to include in the “green passports” list only those vaccines approved by the European Medicines Agency. As of now, let me remind you, there are four of them – Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson. The rationale: “The EU cannot be held responsible for the quality of unapproved vaccines.”
This would be logical if we were talking about vaccines made by nobody knows who and how. But Sputnik and Sinovac would mean millions more vaccinated people. The respected scientific journal Lancet wrote about the effectiveness of Sputnik – over 90%. And Turkish scientists who tested Sinovac estimated its effectiveness at 83%.
And it would be a different matter if the EU would have banned all vaccines except those it has approved. No: its countries are entitled to approve vaccines themselves. As a result, Hungarians are being vaccinated with both the Russian and Chinese vaccines, and Slovakia has approved Sputnik, too. And I think that this is not yet where it will end. The very situation is deplorable: Europe is terribly lagging behind the US in its vaccination programme, for instance. Pharmaceutical companies are in no hurry to fulfil their obligations – in the first quarter, AstraZeneca delivered only a third of the promised amount to the EU.
This is even though the effectiveness of AstraZeneca is only 60%, and a number of countries have questions about its side effects. However, the European Commission believes that those who were administered this vaccine should have an advantage over those who, like in Hungary, for instance, were given Sputnik or Sinovac. And maybe they have received a particular vaccine only because AstraZeneca is not available, for which ordinary citizens are certainly not to blame.
What is it – big-league politics? Or is it conditions set out by vaccine manufacturers who do not want to share the European market? Both points are understandable – but not amidst a pandemic. I will add some more: five EU countries say vaccines are being unevenly distributed. Will it not happen that with the introduction of the “green passports” some European countries will be more equal than others?
There may be other problems with the “green passports”. Vaccines are not 100% effective. We should not begin to hear talk about absolute protection, as the risk always remains. Also, doctors do not know how stable the effect of a vaccine is – it may only last a few months. What’s clear is that nothing is clear. In such a situation, medicine should be more important than politics and economics – this should, first of all, concern the attitude towards the “not-our” vaccines.