EU urges member states to speed up vaccinations

The European Union is urging member states to speed up the pace of COVID-19 vaccinations to ensure that at least 80% of the most vulnerable people to the virus — those over age 80 — are vaccinated by March. In nonbinding recommendations published on Tuesday, the European Commission also called on the 27 EU member states to accelerate the rollout of vaccination so that 70% of the adult population across the bloc is vaccinated by the end of summer. The EU has sealed six vaccine contracts for more than to 2 billion doses.

But only the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines have been approved for use so far in the bloc, enough to vaccinate 380 million people, more than 80% of the bloc's population. According to health commissioner, 400,000 EU citizens have died from COVID-19 since the beginning of the pandemic.

The commission is also working with member states to allow a vaccination certificates program to be quickly implemented across the bloc. The European Commission added that member states should also take into accounts the new variants of the virus as they update their strategy to combat the virus and increase the use of rapid antigen tests.