AstraZeneca is not above criticism but its European factories face extraordinary demand from avaccine-hungry world,from the nations of Africa awaiting emergency supply to Australia,which will inoculate the bulk of the population with the Oxford jab. The British-Swedish firm is also pumping out the doses on a not-for-profit basis under its agreement with the University of Oxford,so there is little financial incentive for it to divert vaccines to other countries at the expense of the EU.

AstraZeneca certainly bears no blame for the week’s other baffling decision by some EU members to suspend the jab over unfounded safety fears.

Bulgaria,Denmark,France,Germany,Iceland,Ireland,Italy,Latvia,Lithuania,Norway,the Netherlands,Spain and Swedenstopped administering the vaccine after a handful of reports emerged that some recipients had later developed blood clots.

The suspensions were announced in the absence of any evidence of a causal link and public faith in AstraZeneca has taken a hit fromearlier false statements by some European leaders and newspapers.

They were also enforced even though most countries knew the EU’s drug regulator,the European Medicines Agency,had directed its experts to investigate the issue and was due to report their findings on Friday. Why not wait?

The rush looks even worse now the EMA hashanded down its verdict. The regulator on Thursday said it had reviewed 469 reports of thromboembolic events in people who had received the vaccine — a figure lower than would normally be expected in the general population. So the 13 countries suspended a drug that may well lower the risk of blood clots than increase it,and they did it despite warnings not to from the EMA and World Health Organisation.

The EMA does remain concerned about a potential link between the vaccine and 25 combined cases of two rare blood conditions but even if a link is established,the risk is so small that it would never outweigh the life-saving benefits of the vaccine.

But now the damage is done. This week’s unedifying clamour will needlessly erode trust in a vaccine which is safe and slashing infections,hospitalisations and deaths across the Channel in Britain. How many of the people who heard the vaccine was suspended over safety concerns will hear the news that the program has resumed because it was given the all-clear?

Asked what the countries could possibly have been thinking,EMA chief executive Emer Cooke on Thursday let the numbers do the talking:the 25 problem cases are a fraction of the 20 million people who have had the AstraZeneca vaccine in Europe and the United Kingdom. Or 0.000125 per cent to be exact.

She was too diplomatic to note that the 13 countries had downed tools while simultaneously complaining that they weren’t being given enough doses.

Or that nearly 15,000 Europeans died in the past week while some of their leaders thrashed about looking for answers in the wrong places.