UK PM Holds Call w/Comm Pres. After Vaccine Threat

Wires reporting that UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson held a phone call with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen following yesterday's press conference in which she said 'all options were on the table' to ensure EU vaccine supplies, seen as a veiled threat to the UK that it must begin exporting AZ vaccines to the EU in exchange for Pfizer vaccines from the EU.

• Following VdL's comments, UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab accused the EU of 'brinksmanship' and acting like a 'less democratic' regime.
• The UK-EU spat may only prove to be a sideshow in terms of vaccine procurement, with both the EU and UK set to be affected by an export block in India, where the Serum Institute of India had been producing AZ vaccines for export. These have been blocked by the Indian gov't.