The trade war to the sound of vaccines that seem not to have confidence with the Old Continent does not seem to end. The precious doses seem not to arrive, they arrive late or, if all goes well, they emigrate to other shores. And the litmus test of such a failure it was seen at the meeting in the European conclave where the festival of hypocrisies was seen. The meeting practically failed also because, behind a fake union of the facade, a substantial division of fact emerged on the issue of vaccines.
A Europe so weak that it even had to thank the American president in chorus not only for having participated in the call to the meeting after 11 years that America was not present and, second, for promising the Europeans the vaccine leftovers of the Americans.
Of course, because beyond the Atlantic the vaccination campaign is going well, even better than expected. Well to the point that Biden has doubled his goal against Covid, no longer 100 million Americans vaccinated in the first 100 days but as many as 200 million.
Vaccinations at the rate of 2.5 / 3 million people per day. Without saying that, in this apotheosis of vaccines, he managed to give doses to Canada and Mexico as well.
Faced with such a demonstration of strength, logistical capacity, financial commitment that the old Europe could say if not thank you for being there and “if you have some dose left, we are there”. A shame we could have spared ourselves.
But now almost no one among the 27 believes anymore in the strength of amateur contracts signed by Brussels bureaucrats and each country is looking for a possible way to buy vaccines on the market, first of all the Russian Sputnik V. Which by now, it is established, works very well, first of all in Israel and even in small San Marino.
Three numbers illustrate the sad situation in which Europe finds itself: 88,77,300. Let’s talk about millions of doses: 88 those arrived, 77 those exported and 300 those expected. And for Italy it is expected that only on May 6, 2022 will it be possible to have herd immunity. But for the moment all of April the country will be in the red zone, practically armored.
The few hopes are placed in General Figliuolo, a great expert in logistics and beyond, who has promised half a million vaccinated a day. And a good surprise is the upward trend of operations in Lazio, a region that could now be taken as a good example.
But everything is still in the hands of Big Pharma.
Perhaps, in a few years, we will have national production sites but, at the moment we depend on others both for what concerns the productions and, unfortunately, for the contracts.
The contracts made by the UK simply had one simple condition: the obligation to give them. We Europeans, on the other hand, have favored the extreme perfection and safety of the prepared lots and not the delivery dates.
Europe has been slow, naive and has put a lot of emphasis on negotiating the price rather than locking up companies with regard to punctuality of receipt. And the results of this mistake are obvious to everyone.
Last but not least it cannot be hidden that the old continent suffers from a strong weakness: the lack of research centers.
In this regard, the ranking of the first high-tech and research companies in the world is impressive. The first 18 companies are American, Korean, Japanese, Chinese but not even the shadow of Europeans. And this speaks volumes about the difference in strategic vision between the various world powers.
And now this difference has emerged in all its gravity.