EU Commission President confirms vaccinations to start across EU from 27-29 December

The EU will start COVID-19 inoculations on 27^th December, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Thursday via Twitter.

"It's Europe's moment. On 27, 28 and 29 December vaccination will start across the EU," she wrote.

At a midday press conference, an EU spokesperson said that vaccines would start to be delivered to member states on 26^th December.

Deputy Prime Minister and Health Minister Chris Fearne has yet to comment on this latest announcement, however, in comments he gave on Wednesday, he praised the European Medicine’s Agency decision to move up its meeting to authorise the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID vaccine from 28^th December to 21^st December.

Minister Fearne said that Malta was one of the countries to pressure the EMA into moving the meeting forward to approve the vaccine, which Malta has secured 500,000 doses of.

He also said that the European Commission is expected to approve the vaccine procurement within a few days of its approval by the EMA. Following this, deliveries to several EU countries, including Malta, will start within days.

Mr Fearne had said that this means that vaccinations locally could take place before the year-end.