On another note, I’m somewhat suprised how little public discussion there still is about Long Covid/ long term health damages. I’ve seen some quite disconcerning things on that. Anyone got something to contribute on that?
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Nothing more than to agree it should be a big concern however I do believe we need more knowledge before opening up that particular can of worms. It has to be kept in mind we can not let it go in the long term as some of the effects could cause serious problems in time.
Yes. Pretty sure my wife has been suffering from it and it’s been fucking awful for about 10 months now. I mean she’s had a whole load of issues that we think might be long covid. For some time she genuinely felt she was going to die and she’s not dramatic at all. Really scary. Will try and put together a list of everything that she experienced, some of which she continues to go through.
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Growing issue here, because it is not recognized yet by disability insurance, but is largely outside of hospital care as well.
I know someone who had the virus in October, and feels largely recovered - but his VO2max is 25 points lower than it was in August.
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Oh wow, sorry to hear that, all the best to your wife
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Thanks for that. What we’ve read around long covid stuff is scary as hell for some people. She’s definitely better than she was but still isn’t anywhere near to being ‘alright’.
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Yea it is too bloody expensive. I was in Zurich and every meal outside of home was a massive brain strain on where to find the cheapest and value for money takeaways or whatever that can be eaten. There was once I was so hungry after a train ride late from Luzerne and I just went to Mcdonalds and order a few items that would have cost me less than 15 SGD which is around 10 Francs…end up, I paid 21 Francs for my Mcdonalds meal that night…
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There are cases in Singapore where after one year recovering from the virus, they still had not recover their sense of smell.
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Just had a look at the worldometer site definitely looks like the rise in cases and deaths was due to changes of behaviour over the X-Mas period which I mentionned at the time. Cases have been dropping quickly since.
So, on the radio this morning (BBC 5live) they were saying that what appears to have happened is that the UK negotiated better contracts with the pharma companies than the EU. The UK not only got orders in earlier but the contracts focused on guaranteed supply, not price - in contrast to the EU. Apparently the UK also did not insist on the pharma companies carrying liability. Not sure of the details on that as they didn’t expand.
They were also saying that the UK is largely self sufficient with regard to vaccines thanks to AZ but with the orders they’ve placed across the board it could vaccinate the entire population about 5 times. Putting it another way, we’ve over ordered (by backing so many horses).
If you combine the UK’s more secure contract with over orders this may explain why countries that prioritised price, not supply, are finding their supplies impacted. It may mean that they’ll need to approach the UK to do a deal for the UK to give up some of its order. I would suggest that this would be a better approach than threatening to unlawfully embargo the export of vaccines whilst simultaneously smearing the efficacy of the very vaccine (AZ) that you’re demanding be supplied.
But then this is the EU we’re talking about. No offence but the ability to react quickly and effectively to global challenges and opportunities is one of the main reasons I wanted to leave the EU. There are undoubtedly negatives, of course, but this is a prime example of one of the benefits. Just in case anyone was inclined to ask that any be cited.
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How would the contracts prioritise supply? If you agree to give someone a product by a set date and receive payment for that, then that should guarantee the supply short of any small print, such as specifying the factory producing it, or reserving a right to delay subject to receiving a higher offer from elsewhere etc shouldn’t it? I haven’t seen the latter mentioned anywhere.
The liability thing was highlighted in the media last year and I think is one of the reasons some people aren’t trusting the vaccines.
Well, for example I’ve seen many people also reference a “first come first served” basis. A contract could guarantee that until x proportion of the UK’s order has been fulfilled that the UK will get y% of initial production or that the UK is to have exclusive rights to a particular production line until a certain % of the UK’s order has been completed.
There could be penalties for the company failing to deliver a certain amount of doses within a certain time frame that means that the pharma company is incentivised to prioritise the UK supply. Those are the sorts of things that could have been agreed, for a premium, which the UK has apparently paid.
Then, of course, the UK regulator gave approval some weeks in advance of the EU so any stock that had built up was going to be directed there initially as well making it easier for the pharma companies to deliver on the initial order to the UK. The EU has not yet approved the AZ vaccine so naturally you’d think AZ would be delivering vaccines to places where it has approval for use right now. That then squeezes production later on when the vaccine receives approval elsewhere because any stock build up has already been shipped so everyone is then reliant on the speed of production.
Let me get this right, the UK acted without being bound to the EU and in doing so got a massive advantage?
Most of that to me reads as being a beneficiary of having production facilities in the UK, not necessarily that of superior negotiating on contracts.
This is why the Darwin Awards are a thing.
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I don’t think this is a case of ‘massive advantage’ but fortunate circumstances. Had the issues been on the UK production side, or had AZ’s vaccine not met the minimum threshold for use what would have been the consequences?
If we were just talking about AZ here then that would be a fair point but we’re also talking about Pfizer/Biontech. I believe those supplies are coming from Belgium.
Whilst the Pfizer/Biontech vaccine was awaiting approval for use in the EU millions of the vaccine were being shipped to the UK throughout December following its approval for use here.
In total the UK ordered 40 million Pfizer/Biontech doses, along with 100 million AZ ones.
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I’ll just say you’d hear a different side to all of the story on German radio than on UK radio.
But overall I think it’s true that the UK ordered a bit earlier. Just to clarify, because this was mentioned earlier, the EU did order more vaccine than its population though too, not just for 75% (even just in its initial order of 2 billion), obviously backing different horses.
Important to note that it was a conscious political decision by governments to let the EU negotiate for them, they didn’t HAVE to do that through the EU just by being member. Actually it started with an alliance between France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands, and then more and more countries wanted to join, so in order to avoid an outbidding of the smaller and poorer countries in the EU, a joint effort was made. Especially Merkel was very keen on that, citing there shouldn’t be ‘vaccine nationalism’.
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Yes, that’s right. Unfortunately it demonstrated precisely why the EU is ill-equipped to deal with these issues. This is an extreme example in extreme circumstances but does highlight the problems and lack of speed and flexibility inherent with the EU.
I’m not sure I follow. I’m not disputing the UK started earlier. The EU appear to believe their contract reserved advance production of AZ’s vaccine and delivery when they gave it the go ahead.