Europe's Covid cases hit 30million and EU countries face jab delay chaos as mutant strain runs riot

MORE than 30 million cases of the coronavirus have now been recorded across Europe since the start of the pandemic, figures show.

It comes as the mutant strain of the virus continues to spread across the continent and a number of EU member states face delays to their vaccine supplies.

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A tally by the AFP news agency based on official health statistics as of Friday morning showed that 30,003,905 cases have so far been recorded across 52 European nations, including Russia.

The worst-affected countries were Russia with 3,520,531 cases, Britain with 3,260,258, France with 2,851,670, Turkey with 2,364,801, Italy with 2,336,279, and Spain with 2,211,967.

The countries with the highest death tolls were Britain, Italy, and France, which have seen 86,015, 80,848, and 69,313 death respectively.

Last week, the continent as a whole registered around 260,000 new cases each day.

Many countries are also cases rise after easing their lockdowns in the closing months of last year and, in some cases, allowing their populations to move around and gather over Christmas.

Concerns also continues about the spread of the new strain of the virus – thought to be up to 70 percent more infectious than the original – first detected in Britain last month.

The strain is known to have spread at least to France, Germany, Ireland, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Sweden as well as India, Japan, and Australia.

The news comes after a number of European governments said that the rollout of their vaccine programmes would be impacted by a delays to deliveries by US pharma giant Pfizer.

The company said today that adjustments to its manufacturing process intended to increase output would cause temporary delays to shipments this month and in early February.

It said the changes would “provide a significant increase in doses in late February and March”.

But at a meeting this week, around nine of the 27 of the 27 EU member states reportedly said they were currently receiving "insufficient" vaccine supplies.

In a letter to the European Commissions, the health ministers of Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia reportedly labelled the situation "unacceptable".

“Not only does it impact the planned vaccination schedules, it also decreases the credibility of the vaccination process,” they wrote.

Speaking to Reuters, Lithuanian health minister Arunas Dulkys said: “What we want is for Pfizer-BioNTech to restore their deliveries to the agreed schedule."

At a press conference, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said she had spoken with the CEO of Pfizer.

She said he had "reassured [her] that all guaranteed doses of the first quarter [of 2021] will be delivered in the first quarter".

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