Start Covid Vaccination in the EU immediately!

Petition addressed to: European Commission

Recently the world finally has received good news: Science has delivered COVID vaccines whose trial data exceed the expectations of many scientists.

Meanwhile the health situation among EU member states is more than serious. We see lockdowns and overburdened health systems. Vaccines wouldn't change that immediately, nevertheless they have the potential to get us out of this desperate situation eventually. For their approval EU officials insist on following the path of an analysis undertaken European Medicines Agency (EMA) which requires at least 4-6 weeks. At the same time the UK, Canada, the U.S. and others have started their campaigns. As a result, pharmaceutical companies may give away the scarce doses of the vaccines quickly. The amount of available doses for the EU may decrease with every day our procedures fall behind the progress in other countries. Vaccination campaigns in the EU risk to slow down before they have even started. While I respect the thorough consideration of EMA I don't perceive the procedure as practicable approach given the extremely unpleasant situation we're facing.

With this petition, I want to encourage authorities to discuss with the European Commission about the enablement of:

• EU wide emergency approvals for COVID-19 vaccines
• Consent to national emergency approvals - following the UK example - prior to the assessment of the European Medicines Agency.

I suggest the implementation of fast-track procedures for the applications of BioNTech/Pfizer and Moderna as well as for any other applications which may follow in the next weeks - in case they provide transparent and promising data in their clinical trials. Ultimately this should increase the number of available doses of COVID 19 vaccination in the EU in the near future and hopefully speed up the campaigns in the member states, for our neighbors and allies.