Stop jab squabbles
Reports that up to five million Britons could be barred from travelling to Europe this summer because their Covid-19 vaccine has not been approved by the EU’s healthcare regulator will understandably raise alarm.
The potential issue is with several batches of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine manufactured by the Serum Institute of India. The specific batches can be identified by the numbers printed on vaccine cards and the NHS app.
This incident is regrettably only the latest regulatory back-and-forth between different nations and jurisdictions over the AstraZeneca vaccine. The UK and EU regulators must sort out this technical issue.
Let us not forget — made available to poorer nations at cost-price, this jab is the workhorse of the international vaccination effort. With new and potentially jab-defying variants one of the gravest threats to recovery, vaccinating the world remains the key objective.
These inter-regulatory squabbles do nothing but undermine confidence in the jab that will do this.
Wimbledon’s new star
How to take your mind off waiting on your A-level results? Our home star, Emma Raducanu, the 18-year-old from Bromley’s solution was to reach the third round of Wimbledon on her grand slam debut.
Yesterday, she knocked out a former French Open finalist in a stunning upset on Court 12, dominating the opening set and showing a calmness and maturity beyond her years.
So congratulations to Emma— an extraordinary individual making a phenomenal first run at Wimbledon.
