I'm not British, but I live in Britain and I can guarantee you that the vaccine rollout hasn't been rushed.
The difference was that Britain invested early on in multiple vaccines, created a whole new government task force with the only job to get the country vaccinated, they collaborated between AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford in trials and the MHRA (which itself is one of the best if not the best medical regulator in the world) was running a lot of the approval checks in parallel which the EU and other regulators didn't do. Additionally the UK evaluated all data regarding the new COVID-19 vaccines and what we historically know from other vaccines that the chances of an initial one-jab strategy were extremely high almost to a point where it would be irresponsible to not first vaccinate as many people with one jab as possible. For once the UK put science and common sense above red tape and nationalistic rhetoric unlike many leaders in the EU like Macron or Ursula Von Der Lying.
The UK also put a lot of effort into the full vaccine supply chain. And wrote a more comprehensive contract with AstraZeneca than the EU did. Details in the different approaches are here:
Exactly, they botched multiple other things but on this they got it right.
I had my first AZ Oxford shot on Tuesday, I’m 40 and have health issues but nothing that is directly affected by COVID (though coughing is dangerous for me).
Second one is due June 2nd, the first dose to as many people paid off, evidence was good it would but it was still a gamble with so many lives on the line.
> they botched multiple other things but on this they got it right
This was the single most important thing to get right since 1945, by a large margin.
As a EU citizen I must say that the multiple layered structure of the EU is not worse than any other one in normal times but it was a disaster in these exceptional times. Too many indirections, nobody responsible for anything, the people in charge of the vaccination procurement not there because of elections.
> This was the single most important thing to get right since 1945, by a large margin.
Well said. It's obvious to me that the reason that the EU (and leaders of EU member states) are acting unpredictably at the moment is that they very well understand the gravity of this fuck up.
It is an existential threat to the project. Pandemics have ended civilisations in the past.
The difference was that Britain invested early on in multiple vaccines, created a whole new government task force with the only job to get the country vaccinated, they collaborated between AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford in trials and the MHRA (which itself is one of the best if not the best medical regulator in the world) was running a lot of the approval checks in parallel which the EU and other regulators didn't do. Additionally the UK evaluated all data regarding the new COVID-19 vaccines and what we historically know from other vaccines that the chances of an initial one-jab strategy were extremely high almost to a point where it would be irresponsible to not first vaccinate as many people with one jab as possible. For once the UK put science and common sense above red tape and nationalistic rhetoric unlike many leaders in the EU like Macron or Ursula Von Der Lying.