With huge global public health implications, Handelsblatt’s story rapidly became international news—and was rapidly rebuffed. Calls for the underlying data filled social media. An AstraZeneca spokesperson described the reported figure as “completely incorrect.”
The controversy came at a moment of intense finger pointing between the European Commission and AstraZeneca over unfulfilled vaccine shipments, and in the week that the European Medicines Agency (EMA) was expected to decide whether to recommend authorisation.