EU Leaders Warn No Quick End To Virus Restrictions

Brussels, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 26th Feb, 2021 ) :EU leaders warned Thursday that tight travel restrictions must remain as the bloc battles to get its troubled coronavirus vaccine roll-out back on track.

After a video summit in which the threat new, fast-spreading virus variants pose to the strategy was raised, EU chiefs told reporters that it would take months, not weeks, to build enough vaccine supplies.

"The epidemiological situation remains serious, and the new variants pose additional challenges," the 27 leaders said in a statement issued after a video summit.

"We must therefore uphold tight restrictions while stepping up efforts to accelerate the provision of vaccines." European Council chief Charles Michel warned: "We know that the next few weeks will continue to be difficult as far as vaccinations are concerned." But he added a note of optimism: "We do have the means, we have the resources, we have the capability to succeed over the next few months." - Variants spreading - European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, herself a medical doctor before turning to politics, said the B117 British variant of the virus is now present in all 27 EU member states.

"The South African variant is in 14 member states and the Brazilian variant in seven," she added, referring to highly infectious strains that have public health officials worried.

"So there is a lot of challenge ahead of us," she warned.

A shortfall in the number of vaccines delivered in the first quarter of the year -- after British-Swedish drugs giant AstraZeneca fell drastically short in its commitments -- has undermined Brussels' strategy.

Pharma executives, including AstraZeneca's Pascal Soriot, promised at a separate grilling from MEPs to do better as new production and new vaccines come online.

But in the meantime, EU capitals are under pressure to lift some of the lockdown and travel restrictions they have ratcheted up.

Some leaders want Europe to develop a so-called "green passport" to allow those who are already vaccinated to resume an ordinary life After the summit, Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said there was broad support for the idea. But von der Leyen, and Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel, warned that it would take at least three months to design a scheme.

Merkel said that within that time many member states might have national vaccine cards and that these would become compatible "via a gateway at the European level" so that travelling with more information would be possible.

But she warned that this should not mean that those without vaccine passports would not be allowed to travel.

French President Emmanuel Macron said: "While not all of our populations have yet had access to the vaccine, which is administered on a voluntary basis and for the moment according to age criteria, such a document would not give vaccinated people special rights." Macron pointed out that vaccines were going first to the elderly and vulnerable and warned that he would not allow the young to be discriminated against in travel. "I'll never allow access to one country or another to depend on some certificate or other," he said.

- 'Confident' of hitting goal - Despite ongoing concerns that several countries are underprepared to give out the millions of jabs in the pipeline, von der Leyen stuck by her goal of having 70 percent of adults in the European Union fully vaccinated by mid-September.

"This is a goal that we're confident with," she told reporters.

She shared figures used in the summit showing that, by the end of June, the EU should have received nearly 600 million doses of various vaccines.

This would be enough for two jabs for all of the European Union's 255 million adults, should promised delivery schedules be confirmed.

So far, von der Leyen said, around 6.4 percent of the bloc's 450 million people have received at least one jab, "and if you subtract children and teenagers, it's eight percent of the adult population".

Brussels is also concerned the emergence of worrying variants could require retooled booster shots, which would in turn mean vaccine certificates would have to be constantly updated.

A dispute is also stewing over severe border restrictions put in place by several EU countries to curb virus variants, which the European Commission sees as disproportionate.

It has written warning letters to Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Hungary and Sweden about their measures, giving them until late next week to respond.