Good thread on AZ v SA variant
At least you get my point, whether i’m correct or incorrect.
i think. That’s good 
I think this public private partnership is probably the right model. There is a genuine discussion in medicine in general about what intellectual property rights a biotech company should actually have to IP that was build off the back of public funding. I mean, if the NIH has spend 200 million in scientific grants to develop the body of knowledge a biotech firm then adds one step to and commercializes it, how much of that IP should belong to the public?
This is even more of a valid question for vaccines, which are generally not considered to be particularly lucrative. We need to develop candidates against threats we either don’t know about or know about but may never face, and when you get a good one you destroy your own market for your product. These are not challenges a commercial enterprise are ever going to address without incentives, and so government bodies like BARDA in the US exist to fill that gap. Without BARDA funding and innovation over the past 15 years, we almost certainly wouldn’t be at a place where a niche shop like BioNTech could develop an mRNA vaccine.
That provides a reasonable argument to demanding that the regular IP laws are modified for these products. But the issue then becomes, how do you justify a private company to divert resources to delivering these solutions if you’re going to also expect them to not make money on them (and ts important to understand how much of a diversion of resources occurred at pretty much every biotech company to address covid)? It becomes not an issue of how do they justify making money from these products, but commercially how can they justify losing revenue from the rest of their operation they had to deprioritize to meet this emergency public health need?
Our government saw fit to halt roll out of AZ that we were going to to get in relatively large numbers in favor of J&J of which we have very little and likely not to get as much of until a much later stage.
They’ve done a relatively decent job earlier on but have definitely started going off track towards the end of last year and now have pretty much decided to join the clusterfuck that the majority of the world is languishing in thanks to politicking, lack of accountability and in all likelihood profiteering. What’s been achieved in less than a year should be hailed as one of the most momentous achievements in history but fuck, no.
400.000 vaccinations in the Netherlands this week minister de Jonge? The guy in charge and responsible for the whole vaccination process. I call BS, 43.676 today brings the total to 169.903 with 3 days to go in the week and two of them are weekend days when the vaccination drops by 30%.
And don’t talk about not enough supplies because you told us you had stockpiled 600.000 doses you incompetent nitwit 
Just seen this on Channel 4 News:
Yes- that is THE George Weah.
Standing together to fight corona sounds like the wrong message 
One for @Magnus but not George Weah
It perhaps worth looking at the UK-EU-AZ vaccine issue under different scenarios.
The UK has 20-25M AZ doses. The EU has received 20-30M doses (deviation is the number UvdL states and EU vaccine tracker says)
If you say that the contracts are equal priority. Both ordered roughly 100M from AZ. The numbers stay basically the same.
If the UK had remained part of the EU. All AZ vaccines pooled. The delivery from AZ would still only be 40-55% of what the EU ordered. Given population of EU + UK is 510M. That’s enough to vaccinate 4-5% of EU+UK with two doses.
Let’s say AZ said we will give vaccine by population. UK ends up with roughly 7M doses. EU an extra 15-18M doses. (Enough for 7-9M people). Big impact on UK. Drop in ocean for EU.
Let’s say you distributed the vaccine on need. I think there is a reasonable argument that the second wave was more out of control in the UK
If the EU has more AZ doses it would absolutely make a difference. But the problem is not solved by looking at anger with what the UK has received from AZ. What is fair (population, contract, European cooperation or death ethics) it can be sliced different ways. Depending on your perspective in the greater scheme of thing is makes no difference or little overall impact on the issues the EU currently have.
*UK number is overestimate given we know at least 5M doses came from India. But I don’t know how many EU doses come from India.
Have you factored in that EU nations wouldn’t be stockpiling AZ second doses if they had more reliable supply chains? When the EU were told their target wouldn’t be met in late Jan, AZ agreed to deliver 40m doses by the end of March. So far, 18m have been delivered. Just over half of them have been administered (storage of second dose). There is no reliability in what can be delivered by AZ.
In your scenario, assuming the split would relate to future deliveries as well to ensure reliability, with an even 50m split between EU and UK, we’d be looking at the EU having an additional 7% of the population with a first dose (32m additional vaccines plus the 8m stockpiled), bringing first doses to around 18-19% across the EU.
The benefits of a larger quantity of doses is great. The benefit of planning around reliable (and prioritised) supply chains, like the UK currently has, is greater.
Second dose in now, fully loaded. Pfizer of course, non of that dodgy old ‘off the back of a lorry’ Az here 
Seriously but, it’s humbling to see the scale of the operation at the vaccine centre and the efficiency and dedication of the people doing this. From the guy that greeted me from the entrance with a cheery hello right through to the woman who seen me off out the other end with a cheerio. Many volunteers giving up their free time for the greater good, and health care staff who have been redeployed from their normal jobs to spend their days operating this conveyer belt. Never mind all the vaccine development, logistics of delivery, storage, planning etc.
As some would point out, humans are generally still fuckwits but this gives me some renewed faith in people when you see them at their best executing a mammoth scaled do-good operation.
Found this in the Times, better to solve your problems by giving and take a bit. 
Britain is close to striking a vaccine deal with the European Union that will remove the threat of the bloc cutting off supplies.**
Britain ready to seal Covid vaccine deal with EUAfter a week of frantic behind-the-scenes diplomacy the two sides are expected to seal an agreement as soon as this weekend under which the EU will remove its threat to ban the export of Pfizer-BioNTech jabs to Britain. In return the government will agree to forgo some long-term supplies of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine that had been due to be exported from Holland.
That’s not what’s happening though, is it? The EU messed up their procurement so have threatened to seize the vital supplies belonging to others to compensate for their own failings, with no care as to how that will impact upon non-EU lives.
See how they’re targeting Pfizer, despite that company meeting its targets?
The UK would be getting very little of AZ supply from the Netherlands but do need the 20m or so remaining jabs from its Pfizer order.
If the EU are really about levelling up the proportion of people who have received a jab then they need to stop doing any further vaccinations and divert all their supplies and immediate further orders to COVAX.
Be that is it may that was not my point. They were heading to a vaccine-war and now they are heading for a solution to avoid a war, always better IMO.
55,472 new vaccinations registered in the Netherlands yesterday, not enough.
Have you any idea why it’s soo slow?
I mean France is slow when it comes to medical care and I expected it to be slow (where as I expected Uk to be relatively fast) this imo is due to the communication systems. I haven’t a clue about other countries but for example I can understand frustrattion in say Germany with EU roll out as they tend to be efficient and have good communication. Yet Holland is pretty small and efficient (at least in appearance) what’s the hold up?
Yes, always good to avoid escalation but the fact remains that this is the EU playing posturing politics with people’s lives because it messed up.