Bombshell anonymous claims surfaced in the EU last night, with German business paper Handelsblatt claiming that the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine “hardly works in seniors“. The claims sourced from anonymous figures in the German government are completely at odds with the assessment of the MHRA, AstraZeneca, and the study data published in The Lancet. Guido does start to wonder who is more likely to be right, an independent regulator and a compony with its reputation on the line… or anonymous German sources…

The timing of this anonymous briefing came after a day of rows in the EU over AstraZeneca’s announcement it will not be able to deliver its full order to the EU by March as intended. EU Health Commissioner slammed the shortfall as “not acceptable” and went on to threaten tight export controls over all vaccines produced in the EU in retaliation. That anonymous briefing slamming AstraZeneca at the height of this row is possibly not entirely unrelated…

The mood in Westminster is furious, with Guido receiving a colourful variety of sweary texts from backbenchers describing what some fear comes close to psychological warfare. Vaccine Minister Nadhim Zahawi barely struck a more emollient tone on this morning’s broadcast round, repeatedly slamming the EU’s “vaccine nationalism” across multiple broadcasters. Expect the ‘low efficacy’ row to run until more data is published. Someone is going to end up with ei auf seinem Gesicht.