BRUSSELS — From Stockholm to Athens and from Lisbon to Warsaw, European Union governments are gearing up to receive a coronavirus vaccine later this week, even as cases keep rising in some parts of the continent. The bloc’s drug authority, the European Medicines Agency, approved the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine on Monday, setting off a logistical marathon the likes of which most of the authorities in the region have not had to contend with before. The operation to buy, approve and distribute the shots across the European Union has been complex and politically charged, and the stakes could not be higher. The pandemic’s second wave is still raging in parts of the region, most Europeans are spending the holidays in some type of lockdown, and the bloc’s economies are in tatters. To further complicate matters, a highly contagious variant in England led many European countries over the weekend to block travelers from Britain, although scientists say it has already reached the continent.

Source: New York Times December 21, 2020 07:26 UTC