The European Union has reached its target of 70% of adults fully vaccinated covid

 European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced yesterday that the European Union has now reached its target of 70% of adults fully vaccinated. However, a great disparity remains between the EU Member States and more generally between the rich and poor countries of the world.

70% of people over 18 years of age fully vaccinated in the European Union

While on 27 July the European Commission had already announced that 70% of the EU's adult population had received at least one dose, the European Union has now reached a new milestone. Indeed, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, announced this Tuesday, August 31, 2021, on Twitter, that the European Union has reached its goal of 70% of adults being fully vaccinated.

According to Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides: "We can be proud that our vaccine strategy has achieved its goal, with the participation of Member States and citizens." "But we can't stop there. To be safe, we need to go beyond 70% because of the new variants," she warned. Indeed, the World Health Organization (WHO) fears that the pandemic will cause 236,000 additional deaths in Europe by December 1 if vaccination stagnates.

Disparities between EU member countries

Although the target of 70% of people fully vaccinated has just been reached in the European Union, this rate hides significant disparities between countries. Indeed, according to data from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), the rate of adults fully vaccinated varies by 20% for Bulgaria, 32.8% for Romania, 49% for Slovakia, 58.1% for Poland against 72.5% in France, 70.6% in Germany, 76.7% in Spain, 82.4% in Portugal and 85.5% in Ireland. Faced with this observation, the Health Commissioner stressed the need for the EU to reduce the "worrying gap" in vaccination rates between member states. In addition, she recalled that the EU must be ready for the injection of a new dose to boost immunity if "scientific data show that this is the way to go".

Beyond the European Union, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called for "supporting vaccination in the rest of the world with our partners". And for good reason, the vaccine divide between rich and poor countries is still too great. For information and according to data consolidated by Our world in data, only 1.4% of people in low-income countries have benefited, to date, from at least one dose of vaccine against Covid-19.