III.Blank-filling (10%) (AB) made up for (AC) sticking point (AD) hammered out (AE) compounded (BC) herd immunity
(BD) succeeding (BE) proceeding (CD) liability (CE) alternative (DE) procurement Major European countries are facing a third wave of coronavirus deaths and infections as the EU and
individual member states come under fire for slow vaccination rollouts, trailing countries like Britain and
the United States. The European Commission secured its first vaccine contract 105 days after former EU member Britain. It
approved its first vaccine 19 days after Britain. The slow rollout has been (21)_______ by delays, fears
about safety, tension over deliveries, including recent disputes with Britain over exports of the
AstraZeneca vaccine. Many Europeans are skeptical about vaccines anyway. EU officials told Reuters product (22)_____ was among contentious points in European efforts to secure
supply deals for potential vaccines from Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson and Sanofi, whose COVID-19
vaccine development has been delayed.
Pricing was another possible (23)_____ but Sandra Gallina, director-general for health at the European
Commission, denied that the Commission had prioritised price over making sure it secured vaccines.
With eight additional vaccine deals, the EU has (24)_____ lost ground and secured 1.84 billion doses
that have the potential to cover 227% of the bloc’s population, according to the Duke Global Health
Innovation Center’s Launch and Scale Speedometer. The United States has the potential coverage of 200% of its population, but the UK has one of the highest
coverage rates with vaccine deals able to cover 364% of the population. The European Commission said in early March that it was considering emergency approvals for vaccines
as a faster (25)_____ to more rigorous conditional marketing authorizations which have been used so
far.
Any change of tack would come after Eastern European countries, including Hungary, Slovakia and the
Czech Republic, approved Russian and Chinese vaccines with national emergency procedures. Britain
also used its emergency procedure to approve COVID-19 vaccines.The EU (26)_____ prices and orders
of doses, but it is the responsibility of individual member countries to work with the pharmaceutical
companies to deliver vaccines and carry out their own inoculation strategies. Overall the vaccine development programme have been slow across the EU — 63 days to give 5% of the
population its first dose after the vaccinations began at the end of December. The UK and the U.S.
reached a 5% vaccination rate 38 and 40 days after the first shot, respectively.
With infection rates rising, governments are under pressure to speed up inoculations. Still, some are (27)_____ at getting shots into their residents’ arms faster than others.
Malta, with the highest vaccination rate in Europe at 29% on March 28, is expected to achieve (28)_____ for the island nation’s half a million population by mid-summer, according to Health Minister Chris
Fearne. Vaccination rates have also soared in Hungary after its drug regulator approved Russia’s Sputnik V for
use. Since the EU does not have a (29)_____ deal with the Russian vaccine, member states like Hungary
and Slovakia can pursue their own contracts. EU-negotiated vaccines should be distributed based on
countries’ populations, but deliveries do not seem to be (30)_____ evenly. Germany, Europe’s largest
country by population, has received enough doses of vaccines to give one shot to 21% of its population. By contrast, Bulgaria, with less than a tenth of Germany’s population, has only gotten enough vaccines to
give one shot to 10% of its population. 【題組】26.