The first European strategic mistake – no steps have been taken to ensure medical integration for vaccination management. It would have been crucial because we have different IT management systems at the national level, not to mention the fact that the definition of priority target groups is different at the national level and the pre-rotation processes are different. It is not effective to provide a single EU supply point for member countries if the pace of vaccination is not synchronized in all member states.
The second European strategic mistake – decision makers believed that they can trigger the vaccination process in parallel with the stages of pre-planning, planning, scheduling and administration simultaneously. This happened in the context in which the minimum need for vaccines could not be estimated and without taking into account the multinational format of access to vaccine production
The third European strategic mistake – a vaccination plan was launched without setting indicators for the whole process. For example, if we had set a vaccination rate of 10% of vaccinated citizens per month in the EU, then the logic of planning obliges us to insure vaccine stocks. No commercial contract in the world can solve the problems of production, supply and administration. These issues had to be resolved before signing a contract targeting 445 million people. One is to conclude a contract that provides you with access to the vaccine and another is to sign a contract that provides you with vaccine stocks at the desired scale.
It is unfortunate that the EU has tried to promote a symbolic political goal – to launch vaccination 1 year after the pandemic. We tried to demonstrate the political power and financial capacity of the EU instead of trying to prove that we have the skills and that we know how to prepare a plan to fight the pandemic at the medical level.
