The Long War
Why the pace of coronavirus vaccination has been so slow in Austria
Servus!
Theresia Hofer, 84, was the first Austrian to receive the coronavirus vaccine. On December 27, as part of a coordinated Europe-wide rollout which only the Orbán regime in Budapest sought to undermine, Hofer was injected with the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine by Ursula Wiedermann-Schmidt of Vienna’s Medical University. Chancellor Sebastian Kurz called it a “historic day,” declaring Hofer’s inoculation the “beginning of the victory over the pandemic. It is a gamechanger.”
And then everything stopped. As of writing, Austria has only vaccinated a measly 0.07 percent of its population or 4,964 people. Within the EU, Austria has already fallen behind Denmark, which has taken care of 0.81 percent of its population, Germany at 0.32 percent, and Portugal at 0.31 percent. This is to say nothing, of course, of the United States (1.38 percent), the United Kingdom (1.39 percent), and Israel (14.14 percent), whose speedy and efficient rollout of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine is the envy of the world.
How to explain the gross discrepancy between Israel and Austria’s vaccination rates? The political conditions on the ground in Israel cannot be ignored. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is currently under indictment and the country is due to go to the polls—again—at the end of March. There is a clear political incentive for the government—or rather, for the prime minister—to inoculate as many people in as short a period of time, irrespective of the long-term consequences or how long it takes to vaccinate the entire population in the end.
Second, Israel is a highly centralized (and militarized) country that has been able to swiftly mobilize the healthcare system as if it were engaged in a short war with a clearly-defined objective: to defeat the coronavirus. Austria meanwhile is, on the one hand, a federal republic. Measures designed to combat the coronavirus’ spread must be negotiated with the states before being implemented at the federal level. Austria is also a member of the EU and the slow distribution of the vaccine—the state of Styria has only received 40 (!) doses as of writing—is not an Austrian problem per se but a European one.
Third, Israel bet big on the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, paying between three and four times as much per course of treatment as the EU—$56 versus a figure reportedly less than $19.50 (German broadcaster ZDF says €12)—a gamble which has paid off in the short term. The EU bid collectively, a decision which lowered costs and avoided an all-out war between member states for the corona cure that would have been the death of European solidarity and perhaps the EU itself. It also chose to pool its risks and place orders for a number of different vaccines: not only Pfizer/BioNTech but also Moderna and Oxford/AstraZeneca.
It has enough doses on order to cover every resident of every EU member state—2 billion courses of treatment for 450 EU citizens. That’s not the issue. The problem is, unlike Israel, is doesn’t have the vaccine now. To date, only the problematic (in the sense of it being difficult to transport and store) Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine has regulatory approval in the EU, with Oxford/AstraZeneca not due to receive the OK until the end of January. Oxford/AstraZeneca, incidentally, is the vaccine most likely to be administered to the general population in Austria once things begin in earnest later this year.
In Vienna, vaccination against the coronavirus vaccine will resume today, January 6, according to the city’s health secretary Peter Hacker. In the rest of the country, injections will be administered starting January 12. Hofer’s vaccine on December 27 was indeed, as Kurz said, the beginning of the victory over the pandemic. But it was only the beginning.
Bis bald!
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