COVID-19
EU says it has reached target of vaccinating 70% of adult population
The European Commission said on Tuesday that 70% of the European Union’s adult population had been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, hitting a target it had set at the beginning of the year.
The announcement marks an important milestone in the EU vaccination strategy after a slow start, but it also masks big differences among EU countries, with some nations being well above the 70% goal while others in the poorer eastern region of the bloc are far behind, Reuters reported.
“70% of adults in the European Union are now fully vaccinated and that is more than 250 million people who are immunized and this is a great achievement,” the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen said in a recorded video.
In January, the Commission said that “by summer 2021, member states should have vaccinated a minimum of 70% of the adult population.”
This was interpreted as meaning that each of the 27 EU member states should hit that target by September. Many, fearing they could not, criticized the Commission in internal meetings, documents seen by Reuters showed.