Boris Johnson has declared he is due to have a first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine shortly just as the European Union threatened to halt exports of life-saving jabs to countries with higher vaccine rates.
European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen told reporters in Brussels: “We are exporting a lot to countries that are themselves producing vaccines and we think this is an invitation to be open, so that we also see exports from those countries coming back to the European Union.
In what appeared to be a veiled threat to the UK, she added: “The second point that is of importance to us: we will reflect on whether exports to countries who have higher vaccination rates than us are still proportionate.”
She said that the Commission was prepared to use whatever “tool” necessary to ensure what it regards as fair access to supplies."
With the EU under fire over its slow roll-out of vaccines, commission president said the EU expects to get tens of millions of doses less of the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab than she said it had ordered.
Because of procurement difficulties blamed on AstraZeneca the EU is lagging far behind the UK in distributing vaccine doses to member nations.
Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine doses for Europe including the UK are being produced in BioNTech’s German manufacturing sites, as well as in Pfizer’s manufacturing site in Belgium and could be affected by any EU action.
More than a dozen European countries have stopped using the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine over blood clot fears which the manufacturer and the World Health Organisation have said are groundless.
In a show of support for the UK-produced jab the Boris Johnson told MPs in the Commons : “I think perhaps the best thing I can say about the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine programme is that I finally got news that I’m going to have my own jab very shortly, I’m pleased to discover…
“It will certainly be Oxford/AstraZeneca that I will be having.”
Johnson later told MPs that he is “deeply, deeply sorry” for what has happened to the UK during the pandemic.
Labour’s Richard Burgon MP called for an apology from the Tory leader a year on from the outbreak of Covid-19 in the UK.
Burgeon said: “With the worst hopefully now behind us, isn’t it time for the Prime Minister to hold up his hands and come clean with the British people and say those deaths are on me and for that I apologise?”
The Prime Minister replied: “Well I certainly take full responsibility for everything the Government did and of course we mourn the loss of every single coronavirus victim and we sympathise deeply with their families and their loved ones.
“Am I sorry for what has happened to our country? Yes of course I am deeply, deeply sorry.
“Of course there will be time for a full inquiry to enable us all to understand what we need to do better when we face these problems in the future and that is something I think the whole House shares.”
