This is shocking. But it’s the most telling aspect of why AZ have been thrown under the bus. No need to look for other reasons. Macron especially, who has been so aggressive against AZ, is as everyone knows, a direct vassal of the big multinational companies. No wonder that he’d do everything he can to undermine a vaccine project renouncing to maximise profits.
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The EU’s contempt for the law is becoming ever more brazen.
“No other contract should supersede our contract,” said deputy chief European Commission spokesperson Dana Spinant at the daily briefing.
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Gotta love the Danes. They’ve really got their shit together.
More concerned how 51% of Britons think that Boris has handled the pandemic well.
Speechless to be honest. There’s no hope when you see crap like that.
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It’s the problem with recency bias. The government is rightly seen as doing a good job now so previous failings become forgotten or more easily dismissed. As you say, it’s important that when the time comes for a final reckoning, the numerous failures, particularly but not exclusively early on, are not forgotten and that there is accountability.
We may end up with death rates equivalent to other comparable countries but that shouldn’t be used to whitewash failings.
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The government know that the most recent good work will be fresh in everyone’s mind. Its why Mr. Johnson said in the recent Conservative Spring Forum to ask all his colleagues to hammer home the success of the vaccination programme at every opportunity. We will hear about it a lot over the coming months. I imagine that sound will be so loud (in a similar fashion to how the Leave campaign had success in this area) that it will be difficult to gain any traction with all the failings of the government. The near future IMO is a very critical period for Starmer. He has to ensure the 150,000 are not forgotten. He has to ensure there is some accountability for the cronyism. He has to hold the government accountable on the Brexit deal. He absolutely has to play the political game here and be savage - If the roles were reversed the Conservatives wouldn’t hesitate for a second in pushing the message of the failings, which for this government have been far and wide ranging. (Hopefully) with a lull in the pandemic here, he needs to make his voice heard. If he doesn’t - I personally don’t think he’s gone after Boris as much as he needs to yet - he will forever be viewed as a weak candidate for those potentially sitting on the fence.
Soz. Probably for the UK politics thread.
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Despite this analogy being wholly wrong (both vaccines act to reduce the risk of blood clots generally)…I guess we’ll soon find out…
https://twitter.com/redouad/status/1376864139797204997
https://twitter.com/redouad/status/1376882767405985795
https://twitter.com/redouad/status/1377203970859536384
https://twitter.com/Zack_Nani/status/1377204450499178496
https://twitter.com/redouad/status/1377204767194292225
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You can have your Danes.
Bhutan is where it’s at.
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Nah; their bacon isn’t as good.
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https://twitter.com/TBspekschoor/status/1376901063413018626
Google translate:
The British get a lot more, we get a lot less and that is unfair, has been the story in Brussels and The Hague for a while. But if we had acted as decisively as the British, there was a chance we would have lined up next to them
[I’ve run the article through Google translate]
Thomas Spekschoor
correspondent Europe
·
Go to Thomas Spekschoor’s Twitter accountSend an email to Thomas Spekschoor
The University of Oxford asked the Netherlands to invest in its corona vaccine at an early stage of the pandemic. Prime Minister Rutte and the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport were confronted with this request from Oxford in April 2020 and there were talks afterwards, but a deal never materialized. If that had been the case, the Netherlands would probably have had many more AstraZeneca vaccines by now.
This is evident from background discussions that the NOS conducted with those directly involved on the condition of anonymity, and from a letter to Prime Minister Rutte that has been inspected by the NOS.
The day after the request to Rutte, AstraZeneca and Oxford University announced a collaboration, in the following weeks talks about a Dutch investment ended. Wrongly, say sources in the United Kingdom; At the time, the Netherlands still had the chance to participate, if it had acted much more actively itself.
Specific request
Oxford’s specific request to the Dutch government was to invest 10 million euros in equipment in the Halix vaccine factory in Leiden. From the talks that the NOS had, it becomes clear that the British government already invested about 25 million euros in this factory in April last year.
This made it possible to scale up to vaccine production in a 200 liter barrel. But Oxford University wanted more: it wanted to produce vaccines in a 1000 liter drum. The British government did not see investment in such large-scale production outside its own island. That is why the scientists in Oxford turned their eyes to the Netherlands.
One of them ended up with CDA Member of Parliament Pieter Omtzigt. He was asked in April last year to bring Halix and the vaccines that can be made there together with Oxford to the attention of the Dutch government.
Which company does what?
Oxford University - Developed the vaccine against corona, but has no location of its own to produce that vaccine. This requires external companies.
AstraZeneca - As a pharmaceutical company, it bought the vaccine from Oxford University, making it the only company worldwide that is allowed to distribute the vaccine. For example, the company handles all legal and administrative processing and searches locations to make and package the vaccine, but does not make vaccines itself.
Halix - One of the companies initially hired by Oxford University to actually make the vaccine. If AstraZeneca takes over the vaccine from Oxford, they too will continue to work with Halix.
On April 28, 2020, Omtzigt spoke with Prime Minister Rutte in the Torentje. Various sources report to the NOS that the potential investment in Halix vaccine plant was the main topic. The RVD confirms that the conversation has taken place, but states that “a wide range of topics” have been discussed, “including Halix”. Omtzigt is not available for comment.
A day after the conversation, Rutte received a letter on behalf of Oxford confirming the demand for an investment of about 10 million euros. The crucial parts of that letter have been viewed by the NOS.
It is striking that the letter already predicts the situation in which the EU will find itself a year later. “There will probably be a huge demand for vaccines if they pass the tests successfully. Most likely, the quantities of available vaccines will be limited for several months. In order to avoid major delays, production capacity must now be increased.”
No more contact with Oxford
The Dutch government spoke to Halix several times in the days following the letter. In a letter to Parliament, officials from the Ministry of General Affairs wrote last month that a Dutch investment had been discussed, but that the company itself stopped all discussions about it after a short time. Pharmaceutical AstraZeneca had in the meantime taken over the Oxford vaccine and as a result Halix announced that there was no longer any shortage of funding, as is the response of the RVD on behalf of Rutte.
But sources in the United Kingdom say that the Netherlands could still have invested. After all, the demand for money did not come from Halix, but from Oxford University. Omtzigt had received the message that the Netherlands should speak to Halix. But if officials had also contacted Oxford itself, more would have been possible, British sources say. The Dutch government should have acted “very proactively”, but Halix’s production space had not yet been reserved by anyone else.
RVD response on behalf of Prime Minister Rutte
"On Tuesday, April 28, 2020, a meeting between the Prime Minister and Member of Parliament Pieter Omzigt will take place in Het Torentje. This will take place in the presence of the adviser, VWS. A wide range of corona-related subjects will be discussed. Halix will also be discussed orally. involved in the Oxford vaccine candidate as part of a consortium.
The following day (Wednesday, April 29), at the request of Omtzigt, the adviser will contact an external person, who will also send a letter by e-mail on the same day about the possibilities regarding Halix. This letter suggests that the next step is to contact the Managing Director of Halix; which happened immediately. The letter in question was forwarded to VWS that same day. On Thursday, April 30, the adviser himself will be in contact with Halix, and VWS will also have contact with this company on that day.
On Monday 4 May, the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport will hold an exploratory discussion with Halix about possible investments in scaling production capacity. In addition, Halix is invited to come up with a concrete proposal. Shortly after that appointment, the request for financial support was no longer necessary. A concrete proposal was therefore not discussed afterwards. "
Accountability
For this article, the NOS spoke with stakeholders in the Netherlands, Brussels and the United Kingdom. None of the sources can speak in public, because pharmaceutical AstraZeneca imposes a duty of silence on all parties involved in contracts and because the sources work at other companies or organizations that do not want to publicly interfere with the case. The crucial parts of the letter that was sent to Prime Minister Rutte have been viewed by the NOS. Pieter Omtzigt and Halix were repeatedly asked for comment, but did not respond.
https://twitter.com/TBspekschoor/status/1377104588071792650
Google translate:
And of course it is easy to reason with hindsight, but what you can see: the British are right when they say that they are more entitled to those vaccines from Leiden, because they did invest. There they appear to have a point.
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For some reason that is not immediately apparent to me, AstraZeneca have renamed their vaccine so that you may now see it referred to as Vaxzevria.
Or their Copenhagen’s…
Also just heard that testing in 12 year olds has returned excellent results
Just the schools going back for one day after the holidays is enough for the whole cabinet to be clapped in irons and sent to Aus.
I think that’s from Pfizer trials isn’t it? I saw 100% efficacy mentioned.
Do you know what, I honestly cant remember which vaccine it was. I only heard the news an hour ago and I was interested in it purely from the selfish thought that hoping one day soon my little one will be also be able to get vaccinated in some way or another.
I need to sleep I think.
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I’m keen to see the number of infections in the placebo group from this study, and from which parts of the country the participants were from? Were the children under lockdown conditions? Have they been meeting in schools? What sort of social interactions have they been making? We know that children have quite a strong immune response anyway so the details matter.
In general, I really want to see how the vaccines handle real-world (read: non-pandemic) conditions of human interactions in young and old. Do they stand up in adults when we dial back or remove some of the social restrictions we currently have in place and there is greater exposure to viral inoculum from an infected person?
There were 18 infections in the placebo group, none in the vaccinated group.
https://mobile.twitter.com/andrew_croxford/status/1377214776875552773