EU now confident that supply – the biggest problem in early months of year – should not be an obstacle to further acceleration. https://www.eudebates.tv/ The restaurant and cafe terraces spilling out into the streets of the pretty Dutch medieval town of Sluis were teeming over the weekend with smiling people clinking glasses under the spring sun.

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The Netherlands reopened alfresco hospitality last Wednesday and Belgians, ignoring official advice, had driven a short distance across the border in huge numbers to enjoy their neighbour’s freedom over the long Labour day weekend. “We could have filled 400 tables,” said an apologetic waiter at the Resto de Eetboetiek, as he turned away the latest family arriving without a reservation.

Despite concerns within the Dutch government over the country’s infection rate, the rapid speed of the country’s vaccination rollout in recent weeks and the jab’s clear impact on transmission has been the key to emboldening the prime minister, Mark Rutte, to drive forward reopening the economy.

According to the latest official data, a jab is being administered in the Netherlands, population 17.2 million, every half a second, a huge boon compared with the very early months when a lack of organisation in administering the jabs appeared to be behind a glacial start.

The Belgian government, while a little more cautious given some of the particularly dark months the country has faced during the pandemic, has said it also plans to reopen outdoor hospitality on 8 May, again fortified by its own vaccine take-off.

Like the Netherlands, although for different reasons, Belgium’s rollout was not quick in the early months of this year. Faced with some of the worst death statistics in Europe, the government focused on getting jabs to its most vulnerable: 86.8% of over 80s are fully vaccinated and 84.18% of 65- to 84-year-olds. But it is now firing through the younger, more easily accessed age groups, reducing the time between delivery of doses and administration from 18 days in March to around four in the last week.

This evolution is being witnessed elsewhere in the EU. Apart from the stragglers of Bulgaria, Latvia, Croatia and Romania, solidly over 20% of the population in each of the other EU member states has now received a vaccine jab, with the tiny island state of Malta leading the way with 52.43%, and as the difficult-to-get-to priority groups are being ticked off the pace of jabs is increasing.

Among the 23 EU member states who have reported to the European centre for disease control and prevention, the median uptake among the over-80s is 73.1%. With that accomplished, Germany celebrated the milestone of administering 1m doses in a day last Thursday and France broke its record at the end of last week of giving 545,000 shots on Thursday and 549,000 on Friday.