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It”s being hailed as an historic moment.
The UK’s approval in record time of a COVID-19 vaccine has lifted spirits in London but raised eyebrows elsewhere.
In giving the go-ahead for emergency use of the vaccine developed by American drugmaker Pfizer and Germany’s BioNTech, Britain has vaulted past the United States by at least a week and provoked accusations of putting speed before public confidence.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was beaming:
“We’ve been waiting and hoping for the day when the searchlights of science would pick out our invisible enemy and give us the power to stop that enemy from making us ill. And now the scientists have done it.”
The UK’s health secretary said the biggest programme of mass vaccination in the history of the UK would begin next week starting with the most vulnerable. And he credited the speed of the regulator’s approval to Britain’s recent departure from the European Union:
“We do all the same safety checks and the same processes, but we have been able to speed up how they’re done because of Brexit”
It was point taken up by a fellow Conservative MP Jacob Rees Mogg, which later brought a rebuff from German Health Minister Jens Spahn:
“And then for our British friends since I have read some comments on Brexit, BioNtech is a European development funded by the European Union, and it shows that if a product from the European Union is so good that it’s authorised so quickly in the UK, that in this crisis, what is best, is European and international cooperation.”
With the number of deaths and infections still mounting in areas of the UK, a vaccine is seen as the only way out of the pandemic. The head of the regulator has stressed that no corners were cut in assessing its safety and the government expects a high take-up of the jab.
