I've yet to see an explanation of how this would have been impossible while in the EU. UK medical approval is through NICE, and purchasing through the NHS (and devolved NHS organisations!)

Indeed, this argument is incorrect.

The UK could've done exactly what it did whilst an EU member.

Then why did no EU members do it?

They did - Hungary bought and deployed the Sinopharm and Sputnik V vaccines which weren't EMA-approved [1], later also taking CoviShield (the AstraZeneca vaccine but manufactured in India) and CanSino.

Why no other countries did it? Who knows. Maybe they thought they were already paying into the EU-wide scheme so why bother?

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_vaccination_in_Hungar...

Okay, one member state did it.

That's more than no EU states? shrug

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/explainers-52380823

> Hungary has been using Russia's Sputnik vaccine for months and and Slovakia has also bought doses of it.

> Germany said in April it would begin talks to secure supplies of the Russian vaccine and Austria said it would buy one million doses, but only once the EU's medicines agency approves the jab for use in the EU.

> The Czech Republic and Poland have entered talks with both Russia and China.

So that's Hungary, Slovakia, Germany, the Czech Republic and Poland - that would be 5 states, ~20%.

It would have been slightly harder from a political perspective. But yes, it could have been done.

Ironically, a non-brexited UK government opposing the single-procurement EU program would have probably forced more EU countries to go alone. On practical matters, it's much easier to sabotage anything when you're inside the building, rather than outside.

Brexit, at the least, was a forcing function for the UK to go it alone. Not being able to rely on the EU for vaccines they made up their own strategy -- and it was superior.

Then why was the UK head-and-shoulders better than any other member of the EU?

Define better?

Our success at procuring vaccines was, at best, dumb luck. If we had any idea what we were doing as a country, our death rate wouldn't have been so high and perhaps we wouldn't have needed to be so desperate for vaccines.

It's like setting yourself on fire and then being really proud of yourself when you manage to find a fire extinguisher.

You're a grown up country and are supposedly able to take care of public health. The EU is a helping hand on these issues, and nobody said that you could not get vaccines because of the EU. The EU is not responsible for a country's cock ups.