COVID-19 vaccine shipments arrive across EU before rollout

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — The first shipments of coronavirus vaccines have arrived across the European Union as authorities prepared to administer the first shots to the most vulnerable people in a coordinated effort on Sunday.

The vaccines developed by BioNTech and Pfizer arrived by truck in warehouses across the continent on Friday and early Saturday after being sent from a manufacturing center in Belgium before Christmas.

The rollout marks a moment of hope for a region that includes some of the world's earliest and worst-hit virus hot spots, including Italy and Spain, and others, like the Czech Republic, that were spared the worst early on only to see their health care systems near their breaking points in the fall.

Altogether, the 27 EU member states have seen at least 16 million cases of the coronavirus and more than 336,000 deaths.

“It’s here, the good news at Christmas," German Health Minister Jens Spahn said at a news conference Saturday. "At this moment, trucks are underway across Europe, across Germany and its regions, to deliver the first vaccine. More deliveries will follow the day after tomorrow. This vaccine is the decisive key to end this pandemic.”

“It is the key to getting our lives back,” Spahn said.

The rollout is the result of coordination on the part of all 27 member states, helping the bloc to also project a sense of unity in a lifesaving mission of logistical complexity after difficulties in negotiating a post-Brexit trade deal with Britain.

The first doses, however, are limited to nearly 10,000 doses in most countries, with the mass vaccination programs expected to begin only in January.

Each country is deciding on its own who will get the first shots — but they are all making the most vulnerable first in line.

French authorities...