BRUSSELS - As a looming third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic highlights the vaccine supply shortfalls in Europe, Hungary joined Serbia to launch mass inoculation with China's Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccine earlier this week.

To ease both citizens' impatience with the slow rollout of vaccinations and the world's urgent need of a global response to the pandemic, some European countries are turning to the East while the European Union (EU) strives to scale up production and reaffirms solidarity with third-party countries.