From New York Times, I'm Michael Babaro. This is the Daily.

Today, Europe's vaccination process was expected to be well orchestrated and efficient.

So far, it's been neither. Sabrina Tavineasy spoke with our colleague,

Matina Stavis-Gridneff, about what's behind Europe's problems and why they may get worse before they get better.

It's Monday, April 12.

Matina, help us understand what's happening right now in the EU with the coronavirus and vaccines,

because from the outside, it looks like a mess. Unfortunately, Sabrina, it looks like a mess from the

inside as well. The World Health Organization warned this week there are more COVID deaths in

Europe now than in March of last year. We're in the middle of a third wave here in Europe.

The highest per capita death rate is in Hungary. In Germany, they are seeing the numbers of infections

rising. France has the fastest growing infection rate in Europe. More than half of the EU 27 member states

have growing caseloads of COVID. That's, of course, down to those really infectious variants.

Politicians responding with lockdowns. New regulations in Poland, Ukraine and France.

But another piece of this worsening picture for Europe.

It's then a scandal throughout the continent.

Is the ultra-slow pace of rolling out the vaccines?

The World Health Organization has criticized the speed of the COVID-19 vaccine rollout in Europe,

saying that it is, quote, unacceptably slow.

And just to give you a sense of what we mean by slow pace, about 62 percent of Israelis

have received at least one dose of a vaccine. That's maybe 47 percent of British people,

a third of Americans. That percentage for EU nationals is just 13.5 percent.

And while that may be much higher than your average global citizen, it's still very, very low for Europeans.

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