Wow, big numbers for second doses starting to kick in
We probably need to wait until Germany, Finland and Scandinavia complete their research on their CVST cases. Is this the first time it has been reported that the cases of CVST may be linked to pre-existing conditions? Australia may just be benefitting from some of the legwork already done in Europe, but it seems that identifying those most likely prone to the condition and warning or outright denying them the vaccine is a more responsible way of going about this rather than totally suspending the vaccine for the entire country. But it depends on whether Australia is making this decision on the back of knowledge gained from the last 2 weeks since the cases in Northern Europe.
A responsible authority taking an objective approach. But then Australia doesn’t have the equivalent skin in the game…
Or the UK, or the US?
According to the article regional variations in manufacturing cost would be a factor.
Yet more lies.
The EU hasn’t exported any doses. Pharmaceutical companies based in the EU have delivered orders to their customers.
Her tweet then describes the EU as “a lead donor to COVAX” but the image then describes the EU as “the lead donor to COVAX”. Not true.
The contribution from the European Commission and all of the EEA countries combined is smaller than that of the US. The UK has contributed more to COVAX than the European Commission and more than every single other EU country combined excluding Germany.
It’s also, of course, ensured that the AZ vaccine is licensed at cost across the globe which is why it’s being made in at least three different continents.
Vaccinations in The Netherlands on 24-03-2021: 57.994. Better, the highest so far but 8.000 away from the 66.000 daily they need to reach 400.000 this week.
The New Daily number for the rest of the week is 68.443.
There is a suggestion (not in the article) that Novavax have held off signing an agreement with the EU since early February due to concerns about EU threats to supply chains.
180 million doses are to be made in Middlesbrough (with 60 million of those ordered by the UK - so 120 million available for export).
If the EU are miffed about the UK securing priority with the UK-developed Oxford/AZ vaccine, hopefully nobody will tell them about the Valneva (French) vaccine.
https://valneva.com/research-development/covid-19-vla2001/
Given the EU remain in discussions with Valneva hopefully someone’s pointed out to them that the UK has a prior agreement from 6 months ago.
[quote=“Kopstar, post:5018, topic:346, full:true”]I actually can’t remember many things making me as furious about something as this. I think I have to go back as far as the Iraq war.
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Funnily enough, some only have to look back as far as the current UK death toll, currently at 126,000 and the (non) actions of Johnston and the tories that exacerbated them to feel pretty furious.
UK the highest death rate in the world for comparable sizes of countries.
Absolutely, I’m furious about that. Bumbling missteps, ineptitude, concerns about cronyism (under investigation), restrictions being introduced too slowly and not stringent enough. These mistakes costs thousands of lives in the UK (as did mistakes elsewhere).
What makes me particularly angry now though is that AZ represents the best chance for everyone, but particularly the poorest countries, to try and get back to normal. And for what increasingly seems to be political reasons, it is being regularly and wrongly attacked and maligned. Confidence in this vaccine is paramount (and justified) but yet it is being constantly undermined to the extent that there is a majority in the EU who now think it is unsafe. Absolutely scandalous.
These attacks have been deliberate and fully in the knowledge what devastating consequences it will have to confidence in AZ but also in vaccines generally. This is already leading to thousands of avoidable deaths. Interrupting supply chains will lead to thousands more. I am absolutely aghast that for reasons seemingly of EU hubris that it is willing to adopt such damaging positions.
I expected it to make a mess of procurement (because I don’t think the EU is equipped to react with speed and flexibility to global threats and opportunities) but I did not expect it to then also effectively go rogue and threaten free trade and interfere with 3rd party contractual obligations and seize property not belonging to it. It comes to something when Juncker is one of the sane voices at the table.
You are obviously more furious about the failings and misdemeanours of the EU on their contractural affairs than the deaths of 126,000 of you fellow countrymen and women. The volume and depth of your postings here clearly show that.
Maybe your right wing leaning, support for Brexit and anti EU stance have skewed your perspective.
Can’t you be pissed of about both?
I’m a remain voting supporter of the EU, and I have nothing but contempt for the Tories and their handling of everything.
But the EU are behaving like absolute bellends right now, and what’s worse, they are making the Tories look reasonable and competetent, and that’s simply unforgivable.
Umm. There are two aspects about which I am currently furious. However, that doesn’t mean I’m turning a blind eye to this government’s failures.
What makes me particularly angry (the first aspect) is nothing to do with Brexit or anti-EU stance as you claim. It is that the one non-profit vaccine that could make a significant difference to everyone is being unfairly hammered. For that the EU (and certain individual representatives of member states) is largely culpable. This will cost tens if not hundreds of thousands of lives. That human cost was and is entirely foreseeable.
The second part which makes me angry is related to my feelings towards the EU. It’s that their behaviour towards AZ (above) appears to be a reaction to their own procurement failings. However, they have gone further than simply maligning AZ and its vaccine on a regular basis (which is already costing lives) but are now threatening international supply chains, interfering with lawful contracts entered into between 3rd parties, and seizing property that doesn’t belong to it.
That is horrendous and is already directly leading to deaths abroad and almost certainly will contribute to lives being lost within the EU as well. This is all foreseeable so I’m afraid I see these actions as particularly pernicious and malicious.
It also stinks too and I do wonder whether animosity towards the UK (and/or commercial interests from EU based corporations) have played a part in this. I also think that there will inevitably be questions asked of the likes of Curevac and Sanofi who have received hundreds of millions from the EU (because the EU needed to be seen to back Germany and France equally) without producing a single vaccine. It may be comparable to the UK’s own PPE procurement issues but potentially on a far larger scale.
Unless I’m misreading the data (entirely possible) but there seem to have been a big jump in P1 (the Brazil Variant of Concern) cases in the last two days.
They’ve gone from 7 to 21.
The number of cases of B1.351 (South African variant) has also jumped by 46 in the two days between 22nd and 24th March (now at 305).
The “Kent” variant (B1.117) remains by far the dominant variant accounting for over 99% of cases.
Do you know how many doses of the AZ vaccine have been produced worldwide to date.?
Good question. I will have to look for precise numbers but off the top of my head it’s about:
31 million for the EU
20-25 million for UK
300 million India?
20+ million Argentina
Will see if I can find precise numbers
I think the US might be sitting on about 30 million as well although I’m not sure where they were produced.
For me the EU (and basically every other country) were absolutely correct to spend hundreds of millions to mitigate risk.
The disconnect is that there is no EU criticism of these companies because they knew when the contract was signed more likely than not those companies would fail to deliver. The timelines are astonishing basically starting in March, Phizer delivered a product by November, AZ by December, multiple others Less than a year.
On top of that approaches like using mRNA had never successfully been used in any medicine or vaccine beforehand.
Every expert basically said it could not be done in less than a year.
Those that have failed. It’s accepted that everyone knew it was high high risk. Really difficult. That same thinking should be applied to the AZ contract.
Instead Ursula von der Leyden has behaved like entitled Karen demanding better service.
Ultimately for me it boils down to this
https://twitter.com/davidheniguk/status/1374649406822232065?s=21
Good luck to the EU with this, but if I was the head of a large pharmaceutical company based in the Eurozone I’m giving serious thought to moving my operation to a country that doesn’t threaten my company or my ability to serve my customers.
31 million for the EU for 450 million people,close to 7%
20-25 million for UK for 67 million people,close to 33%
300 million India? for 1.36 billion people,close to 22%
20+ million Argentina for 45 million people close to 50 %
I don’t agree with the EU resorting to holding back vaccines destined for other countries but imo they are responding to a situation they hadn’t initially made plans for,ie a disparity in received numbers of doses from AZ.Going off the figures you supplied the difference in percentage is huge.
The Uk may have signed a better contract but that shouldn’t come into it when it comes to something the world should be looking to eradicate.
There is no point in saying"no one is safe till everyone is safe" and then ensuring your population is vaccinated first while others continue to die.What the EU are doing now is just a variation of the UK signing an exclusive contract,it’s all looking after yours first.I get that the UK put more in upfront but any country who came in with the first/best should still be subject to a percentage based divide of produced product.
A this point all countries should be looking to aid wharever manufacturing facilities are having issues and ensure they are to full capacity whereever they are.It’s the lack of vaccine doses in most countries which is killing people,we need to solve this problem.
It looks to me that AZ are fulfilling their UK contract at the expense of the EU,i’ve thought this since this kicked off in late Jan/early Feb, and if the situation was reversed then the UK would be saying and doing exactly what the EU are looking to do.I think the EU signed a best efforts contract as they felt all were in this together but have since found this isn’t the case.
The sooner those who can get around a table to sort this out the better.