Is the EU’s approach to vaccines damaging trust in healthcare?

Despite all the talk of going back to normal life, 69 countries are currently still closed to tourists – many of which are European countries. Will the EU’s failure on COVID-19 vaccinations damage the perception of healthcare and risk medical travel in Europe? Global branding expert, Ilan Geva, shares his opinion.

While certain politicians in the US present a very optimistic picture, a report published by the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) presents a much more pessimistic scenario.

The data in the report show that there are currently 69 destinations around the world whose borders are completely closed to tourists. Most are countries in Asia and the Pacific (30), and Europe (15). The daily changing list of closed countries included recently: Austria, Belgium, Canada, China, Chile, Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Hungary, India, Japan, New Zealand, Vietnam, Russia, Poland.

Asian countries stay closed, because of the desire to maintain the status quo and clean from COVID-19, and Europe because the virus is still hopping from one country to another in a variety of mutations.

Let’s be honest, one of the reasons for this abysmal situation is the complete failure of individuals and politicians on rolling out effective vaccination programmes.

Take, for example, Europe’s failure: with the exception of the UK, vaccinations are lagging behind almost any other region in the world. Why?

While President Biden has promised a Corona vaccination to every adult American citizen by the end of May, and Israel has achieved vaccine coverage for almost 90% of the at-risk population, in 27 EU countries the vaccination campaign continues to falter.

The blame coming from citizens of the 27 EU countries is being aimed at Brussels, particularly the European Commission, which had faith in the contracts with Pfizer and Moderna. These contracts failed to provide clear information on the date and quantity of vaccines, and citizens are paying a price.

The EU Commission is the executive body that actually signed the agreements and contracts with the pharmaceutical companies – Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca. However the contracts were likely to fail, as no clear consensus was reached on two acute questions: how many vaccines would arrive on the continent, and when.

It is unclear as to what caused the European Union to trade in vaccines on behalf of all countries, and not let every country to organise it for its own citizens. Similar attempts in the US under President Trump failed miserably. The “Federal” effort was incompetent, and the individual states then needed to desperately catch up.

While at the beginning of the epidemic each European country acted on its own behalf, closed borders and expressed solidarity with neighboring countries, now the EU has decided to act in solidarity and not allow powerful countries to purchase vaccines themselves.

So Germany, France and Denmark, for example, have better economic capacity that can help purchase vaccines, but if we were to see other EU countries competing on their own, we would see a lack of solidarity. There is no solidarity, so it seems.

Another reason for the failure of the vaccination campaign in Europe is the sheer size of the continent. The EU has size advantage when it comes to economic prowess, but also size disadvantage in the vaccination campaign. There are lots of citizens in the continent, many of whom are very old. The union needs huge amounts of vaccines to vaccinate everyone.

Europe also has higher vaccine refusals in some countries. In France, for example, vaccine refusal is relatively high and one in every four French people is less likely to get vaccinated. In addition, publications about the health problems of AstraZeneca’s vaccine are producing a negative reputation for the company’s vaccine and many are rejecting it.

So, the big question for the future is how the EU’s failure to obtain the vaccines will affect healthcare politics on the continent. How will it affect medical tourism to Europe, and inside Europe? Who can one trust now?

About the author:

Ilan Geva, President of Ilan Geva & Friends, is a global branding expert and CEO influencer. He works with clients around the world in a variety of business categories, teaches at universities, and speaks at many medical travel conferences.