With the Moderna vaccine, the second one now authorized in the EU, we will have a further 160 million doses. The EU has ordered 80 million doses of the Moderna vaccine with an option for a further 80 million. The EU agency gave the green light to use the Moderna vaccine on people age 18 year and above. The Dutch were only beginning to give out vaccine shots Wednesday, the last EU nation to start doing so. Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz tweeted that approval of the Moderna vaccine “is another important step in the fight against the pandemic.

The facade of Moderna, Inc. headquarters is seen, Tuesday, Dec. 15, 2020, in Cambridge, Mass. The Food and Drug Administration said that a second potential COVID-19 vaccine, developed by Moderna, appears safe and highly effective, bringing it to the cusp of U.S. authorization. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola)AMSTERDAM – The European Union’s medicines agency announced Thursday that it has moved forward a meeting to consider authorizing a coronavirus vaccine made by Moderna for use in the 27-nation bloc. The Amsterdam-based agency, which is meeting Monday to consider authorizing a vaccine made by Pfizer Inc. and German company BioNTech for use in the EU, had scheduled a meeting to discuss the Moderna vaccine on Jan. 12, but that has now been brought forward to Jan. 6. The decision came after Moderna sent that last package of data on the vaccine needed for the agency to assess it for the EU market, the EMA said.