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The UK could have chosen to take part in the EU schemes any time last year had it wanted to.

Equally, any EU member state could have chosen to go their own way. The EU didn't force them to collectively bargain to (successfully) get better value deals.

Maybe the EU will do a worse job distributing, but it's too early to say.

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It already is doing a worse job: look at the rates of vaccination.

https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations

Yes so far but it's very early in the vaccinations. Feels equivalent to making a judgement on worst country for death toll in March last year.

(As a Brit, I'm pleasantly surprised how smoothly our vaccine roll out is going so far!)

The vaccination programs are national. The Netherlands has received its vaccines from the EU, but they are being kept in storage because the national vaccination program is being slow.

Indeed. But approval of the vaccines is centralised, and is demonstrably slower than US, UK, and others. And wasn't purchasing strategy (with heavy reliance on AZ) also centralised? [1]

You think it's an anomaly that EU countries are below UK and the US (despite the publicised failure of the Trump regime to plan for this)?

[1] https://www.politico.eu/article/angela-merkel-defends-joint-...

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