AP

Same goal, different paths: US, EU seek max vaccine rates

Sep 18, 2021, 11:29 AM | Updated: 11:47 pm

FILE - In this Sept. 4, 2021, file photo, a man receives the Johnson & Johnson vaccine in a bus tha...

FILE - In this Sept. 4, 2021, file photo, a man receives the Johnson & Johnson vaccine in a bus that serves as a mobile COVID-19 vaccination unit in Bucharest, Romania. In both the U.S. and the EU, officials are struggling with the same question: how to boost vaccination rates to the max and end a pandemic that has repeatedly thwarted efforts to control it. In the European Union, officials in many places are requiring people to show proof of vaccination, a negative test or recent recovery from COVID-19 to participate in everyday activities — even sometimes to go to work. (AP Photo/Andreea Alexandru, File)

(AP Photo/Andreea Alexandru, File)


              FILE - In this March 4, 2021, file photo, police officers and others sit in a waiting zone after receiving their COVID-19 vaccine at the Brussels Expo center in Brussels. In both the U.S. and the EU, officials are struggling with the same question: how to boost vaccination rates to the max and end a pandemic that has repeatedly thwarted efforts to control it. In the European Union, officials in many places are requiring people to show proof of vaccination, a negative test or recent recovery from COVID-19 to participate in everyday activities — even sometimes to go to work. (AP Photo/Olivier Matthys, File)
            
              FILE - In this June 16, 2021, file photo, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen shows a phone, as she gives a press statement on the new COVID-19 digital travel certificate at the European Commission headquarters in Brussels. In both the U.S. and the EU, officials are struggling with the same question: how to boost vaccination rates to the max and end a pandemic that has repeatedly thwarted efforts to control it. In the European Union, officials in many places are requiring people to show proof of vaccination, a negative test or recent recovery from COVID-19 to participate in everyday activities — even sometimes to go to work. (Johanna Geron/Pool Photo via AP, File)
            
              FILE - In this Aug. 9, 2021, file photo, an employee checks a clients' health pass at a restaurant in Paris. In the European Union, officials in many places are requiring people to show proof of vaccination, a negative test or recent recovery from COVID-19 to participate in everyday activities — even sometimes to go to work. Struggling to boost its paltry vaccination rates in the early summer, France was the first major EU nation to start using such passes. (AP Photo/Adrienne Surprenant, File)
            
              FILE - In this June 30, 2021, file photo, an entertainer performs in a waiting room for those who have received a COVID-19 vaccine in Antwerp, Belgium. In both the U.S. and the EU, officials are struggling with the same question: how to boost vaccination rates to the max and end a pandemic that has repeatedly thwarted efforts to control it. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo, File)
            
              FILE - In this April 28, 2021, file photo, medical staff attend to a COVID-19 patient in the intensive care ward of the Erasme hospital in Brussels. In both the U.S. and the EU, officials are struggling with the same question: how to boost vaccination rates to the max and end a pandemic that has repeatedly thwarted efforts to control it. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco, File)
            
              FILE - In this Sept 15, 2021, file photo, protesters gather near parliament in Ljubljana, Slovenia. In Slovenia, hundreds of anti-vaccination protesters hurled flares at the parliament building to protest new measures that require a COVID pass for entering almost any shop, service or a workplace in the country. (AP Photo/File)
            
              FILE - In this July 30, 2021, file photo, Jay Vojno gets the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine, in New York. In both the U.S. and the EU, officials are struggling with the same question: how to boost vaccination rates to the max and end a pandemic that has repeatedly thwarted efforts to control it. In the United States, President Joe Biden has issued sweeping vaccine mandates. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File)
            
              FILE - In this Sept. 13, 2021, staff at the Modern Museum of Art check visitors' proof of vaccination in New York. In both the U.S. and the EU, officials are struggling with the same question: how to boost vaccination rates to the max and end a pandemic that has repeatedly thwarted efforts to control it. In the United States, President Joe Biden has issued sweeping vaccine mandates. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File)
            
              FILE - In this July 24, 2021, file photo, people protesting against the "green pass" walk past customers sitting at a cafe in the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele shopping arcade, in Milan, Italy. Italy and France have seen thousands take the streets in protests of the COVID passes, some of which resulted in clashes with police in Paris. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni, File)
            
              FILE - In this Sept. 9, 2021, file photo, anti-vaccine mandate protesters rally outside the garage doors of the Los Angeles Unified School District, LAUSD headquarters in Los Angeles. The Los Angeles board of education voted to require students 12 and older to be vaccinated against the coronavirus to attend in-person classes in the nation's second-largest school district. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes, File)
            
              FILE - In this Sept. 13, 2021, file photo, a notice explaining that proof of vaccination is required to dine inside is seen at a restaurant in midtown Manhattan in New York. In both the U.S. and the EU, officials are struggling with the same question: how to boost vaccination rates to the max and end a pandemic that has repeatedly thwarted efforts to control it. In the United States, President Joe Biden has issued sweeping vaccine mandates. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File)
            
              FILE - In this Sept. 10, 2021, President Joe Biden, with first lady Jill Biden, speaks during a visit at Brookland Middle School in northeast Washington. Biden has encouraged every school district to promote vaccines, including with on-site clinics, to protect students as they return to school amid a resurgence of the coronavirus. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta, File)
            
              FILE - In this Sept. 4, 2021, file photo, a protester holds a placard reading "No to the health pass" during a demonstration against the COVID-19 health pass in front of the Eiffel Tower, in Paris. Italy and France have seen thousands take the streets in protests of the COVID passes, some of which resulted in clashes with police in Paris. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus, File)
            
              FILE - In this Sept. 1, 2021, file photo, a police officer checks a passenger's phone at Porta Garibaldi train station, in Milan, Italy. In both the U.S. and the EU, officials are struggling with the same question: how to boost vaccination rates to the max and end a pandemic that has repeatedly thwarted efforts to control it. Italy is the first major European economy to require the COVID pass to access places of work across all sectors. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno, File)
            
              FILE - In this Sept. 4, 2021, file photo, a man receives the Johnson & Johnson vaccine in a bus that serves as a mobile COVID-19 vaccination unit in Bucharest, Romania. In both the U.S. and the EU, officials are struggling with the same question: how to boost vaccination rates to the max and end a pandemic that has repeatedly thwarted efforts to control it. In the European Union, officials in many places are requiring people to show proof of vaccination, a negative test or recent recovery from COVID-19 to participate in everyday activities — even sometimes to go to work. (AP Photo/Andreea Alexandru, File)

BRUSSELS (AP) — The Belgian town of Aarschot has a vaccination rate of 94% of all adults, but Mayor Gwendolyn Rutten worries her town is too close for comfort to the capital of Brussels, where the rate stands at 63%. But there’s not much she can do about it.

Her hope is that the government mandates vaccination. “Otherwise, you drag all others back into danger,” Rutten said in a recent interview.

But few European Union countries have issued outright mandates, instead requiring people to show proof of immunization, a negative test or recent recovery from COVID-19 to participate in ever more activities — even sometimes to go to work.

More sweeping requirements are the order of the day in the U.S., which has faced significant vaccine resistance. President Biden announced mandates last week that cover large portions of the population, sometimes without any option to test instead.

Despite apparently divergent strategies, officials in both the U.S. and the EU are struggling with the same question: how to boost vaccination rates to the max and end a pandemic that has repeatedly thwarted efforts to control it.

And the apparent split may in fact be narrowing. While not calling their restrictions mandates, some European countries are making life so difficult for those without the vaccine that it may amount to the same thing.

In a perhaps surprising move in a country known for touting individual freedoms, Biden has imposed sweeping vaccine requirements for as many as 100 million Americans, including many private-sector employees and health care workers. Employees at firms with more than 100 workers will need to get immunized or test weekly, while vaccination will be required for employees of the executive branch and contractors who do business with the federal government — with no option to test out. There are some exemptions.

The seemingly more aggressive U.S. policy may reflect greater pressures there. The EU, which initially lagged way behind the United States in terms of vaccinations, surpassed it at the end of July. As of Thursday, the 27-nation bloc had 60% of its population vaccinated compared to 53% for the United States, according to Our World In Data. In the both places, immunization rates vary widely from country to country or state to state.

American authorities from Biden on down have labeled the current phase a “pandemic of the unvaccinated,” with data showing that nearly all COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. are now are in people who weren’t vaccinated. EU officials have used the same description for continuing outbreaks in their countries.

But it’s harder for the EU writ large to impose vaccine mandates since health policies are the responsibility of the 27 national governments, and top EU officials walk on egg shells addressing the issue. Asked specifically by The Associated Press whether mandatory vaccination could be part of the solution, three EU commissioners swerved around the question, though none argued against it.

“This is not within our remit. This is not part of our legal framework,” EU Vice President Margaritis Schinas said, before adding: “But if there is a message that we would like to repeat to member states and through member states to the European citizens, it is ‘vaccinate, vaccinate, vaccinate.'”

Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton emphasized that supply wouldn’t be an issue, and the bloc would “be ready for everything which is needed.” That underscores that such debates can only play out in wealthy nations, while many lower-income countries remain unable to even offer all their citizens a first shot.

But while officials in Brussels can’t impose a mandate on the EU’s 450 million citizens, many national governments are ramping up restrictions for those who are not vaccinated. Some countries are, in fact, requiring vaccines for some groups: Slovenia is imposing them for government employees, with no option to test out.

More common in the EU, however, is essentially requiring regular testing for those who aren’t vaccinated.

Want to see “The Last Judgment” by Flemish Primitive Rogier van der Weyden at a Burgundy museum? You must show a so-called COVID pass — which provides proof of a negative test, a vaccination or recent recovery from COVID-19 — to be allowed to admire that Northern Renaissance gem. The restrictions apply across France for everything from entering restaurants to visiting the Eiffel Tower.

Struggling to boost its paltry vaccination rates in the early summer, France was the first major EU nation to start using such passes. Macron then announced obligatory vaccinations for all health workers in July.

It proved effective. In the eight weeks since the announcement, the French public health service said that the overall vaccination rate went from 40% fully vaccinated to 69%.

As a result, it has found other takers in the bloc. And on Thursday, Italy, which already required the pass for many activities, upped the ante. Premier Mario Draghi’s government said workers in both the public and private sectors will soon be forced to show one to go to work. Slovenia and Greece have adopted similar measures, but Italy is the first major European economy to require the COVID pass to access places of work across all sectors.

The health pass “is not a nudge to get vaccinated, it is a not-so-gentle push,´´ Italian legal expert Vitalba Azzollini said.

On both sides of the Atlantic, people have sometimes felt the push more like a shove.

In the United States, there has been lots of angry rhetoric and scattered demonstrations.

“Everyone should have a right to say ‘no’ to something, and not lose everything,” said Candace Ganjavi, a nurse at Memorial Herman Healthcare in Houston, Texas, who is helping others with advice on how to obtain an exemption from the vaccine mandate her employer has imposed.

Meanwhile, Republican governors across the U.S. have loudly condemned Biden’s mandate and vowed to take legal action. South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster vowed to fight the president “to the gates of hell.”

Biden has defended the mandates by saying “my job as president is to protect all Americans.”

Italy and France have seen thousands take to the streets in protests of the COVID passes, some of which resulted in clashes with police in Paris. In Slovenia, hundreds of anti-vaccination protesters hurled flares at the parliament building on Wednesday to protest new measures that require a COVID pass for entering almost any shop as well as restaurants and private workplaces.

The government doubled down, announcing Friday it would expand the requirement to government employees.

Vaccination rates have soared since the first measures were announced.

“I would be more pleased if people understood why they have to get vaccinated,” said Bojana Beovic, the chief of the Health Ministry’s advisory group on COVID-19. “But the main thing is that the share of the vaccinated population is increasing.”

___

Associated Press writers Christina Larson in Washington, Josh Hoffner in Phoenix, Angela Charlton in Paris, Colleen Barry in Milan, Dusan Stojanovic in Belgrade, Serbia, and AP reporters from across the EU contributed to this report.

Copyright © The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Same goal, different paths: US, EU seek max vaccine rates