EU countries pause AstraZeneca’s covid-19 jab over safety fears

IN EUROPE, vaccination against covid-19 is off to a worryingly slow start. Just 11 doses for every 100 people have been administered in the European Union, against 32 in America and 38 in Britain. Europeans are cross with their governments and with the European Commission, which botched the for the EU last year. Worse, another wave of infections seems to be building in several countries.But in recent days worries about speed have been joined by concerns about safety. On March 15th France, Germany and Italy became the latest in a growing list of European countries, now more than a dozen, to announce that they were temporarily halting the use of a covid-19 vaccine made by AstraZeneca, a British-Swedish pharmaceutical firm.