Again. Wtf? There’s no maybe. These are facts.
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- Thread starter Badunk
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Again. Wtf? There’s no maybe. These are facts.
There’s plenty of reasons to be annoyed with the EU’s vaccine strategy. If you live in the EU. Believe me, it’s a huge pain in the hole. Immediately blaming them the moment there’s a hitch in the UK roll-out is peak Brexit, nationalist nonsense.
As I said, UK's fault.
I think Der Leyen is being very disingenuous here. It’s not the EU that is exporting vaccines. It’s the vaccine manufacturers. Similarly, the vaccines manufactured in the UK are being made by a pharma company, not the UK government. If they have any issues they should be taking it up with these companies. The location of the factories is a bit of a red herring.
I do think AZ’s decision to to meet all their commitments for one customer, while leaving another woefully short is shady as feck but that’s not on the UK government.
Think it's unfair to label anyone pro Brexit and nationalist for having an opinion. I'm not following this as close as you but I keep seeing the EU making various threats and it's become somewhat annoying given its literally lives in the balance.
Yeah but hasn't the very problem with AZ in Europe been that the UK made them sign a contract ensuring that they cannot export, until the UK themselves have received something like 100m doses? So they could supply one way and did, as the EU didn't see need to put such a thing in the contract, but not the other.
So yeah, a pharma company on both sides of the channel, but one government acted first in ensuring there would be no exports until they got theirs (and more) first.
For not supplying the vaccines ordered, yes. The EU for not procuring as they should have done.
Yessssshhh, ALL the UK's fault.
Believe me it’s a hell of a lot more annoying when you live in a country that is constantly having promised vaccine supplies not delivered.
I’m sure the UK paid a premium for that deal. Which is their prerogative. I wish the EU had done the same. Equally, I wish that AZ would make more of an effort to balance out supply between their different customers. Which I refuse to believe is as impossible as it seems.
Someone, somewhere would be vaccinated either way so it's not lives in the balance.
I totally empathise. I have some friends who are Irish and live in the UK and understand how concerned they are about friends and family.
I just want all the big talk and aggression to stop (seems to be the EU at it more than anyone else) and get things working for everyone as opposed to being too proud to accept the mistakes and build bridges to deal with it.
Not really. I imagine if the UK has paid for vaccines and the EU are delaying/preventing them being delivered then the stock is just sat about. It belongs to the UK.
I’m with you there. And (as per what I said a few posts up) the latest broadside from De Leyen makes me cringe.
That isn’t happening. It hasn’t ever happened.
So only Uk lives matter? The EU have paid as well. Nothing has been delayed at all from the EU apart from one shipment to Australia which was in Italy. The whole world need to be vaccinated before this goes away if it ever goes away. Pfizer and Moderna are producing as expected , AZ are way behind with their orders.
Hearing this stuff about a change in the expected volume made me recall this:
I must admit my first reaction to it was that (though I'm as selfish as the next person) it seemed wrong for us to be taking that stock at a time when the whole world is chasing vaccines for high priority groups. I wonder if that supply has now been redirected?
If the plan is for AZ to go immediately to the EU, who aren't then going to use it due to doubts about efficacy/safety from the regulators or due to actual rejection of the vaccine by the population - it'll still be a waste of a precious resource.
Hopefully the investigations into the safety alerts will either soon give it a clean bill of health, or identify the situations/conditions that can make it dangerous for some people, and the product holds will be lifted. Whether that will make people feel happy to receive it afterwards I'm really not sure. It's a tough one.
I must admit my first reaction to it was that (though I'm as selfish as the next person) it seemed wrong for us to be taking that stock at a time when the whole world is chasing vaccines for high priority groups. I wonder if that supply has now been redirected?
If the plan is for AZ to go immediately to the EU, who aren't then going to use it due to doubts about efficacy/safety from the regulators or due to actual rejection of the vaccine by the population - it'll still be a waste of a precious resource.
Hopefully the investigations into the safety alerts will either soon give it a clean bill of health, or identify the situations/conditions that can make it dangerous for some people, and the product holds will be lifted. Whether that will make people feel happy to receive it afterwards I'm really not sure. It's a tough one.
The U.K. was supposed to have had all 100m AZ doses ordered by the end of this month. We have had a huge reduction in supply too. So it wasn’t all lumped onto the EU at all. When people say the EU have rights on the U.K. doses - how much exactly should they get? We’re only producing 2m per week - 75%? 50%? It’s an absolute drop in the ocean to what the EU needs to vaccinate 300m people. AZ is also our main vaccine which is why we invested so much money well in advance setting up the domestic supply chain - unlike the EU where Pfizer and Moderna make up a larger proportion of the vaccine pot. This is all smokes and mirrors - the EU could get all of the AZ we produce and still have a major supply issue in the short term.
The rhetoric would be completely different if the roles were reversed.
All of the EU has not stopped using AZ, one of the many missconceptions on the last few embarrasing pages.
The EU don’t need to vaccinate 300m people with the AZ vaccine though. Even a few million extra doses over the last three or four weeks would have made a massive difference. The biggest challenge dealing with AZ has been last minute reductions, relatively small in size but causing a huge headache in primary care (where it was prioritised) The feeling is that a bit more give and take could have smoothed things out a bit over the last month. In the longer term there’s no real concerns. We’ll all be awash with vaccines in Q2.
The EU are waiting for the orders they placed with AZ, where are they?
Had my second Pfizer dose yesterday and it has hit me hard. The first one didn't affect me at all but this has caused significant body aches & chills. I guess at least it's a sign that it works.
Why is this becoming a UK and EU issue.
The vaccines are not manufactured by either.
They are manufactured and supplier by the drugs companies.
You will be aware that both UK and EU have differing procurement processes.
So if for example AZ are not supplying the required number of vacancies. That is not the fault of the UK. It is the fault of AZ, who also produce in Belgium.
I do get the impression that AZ, rightly or wrongly is on the recieving a great deal of adverse attention by a number of EU countries.
So are the U.K. Where are they?
AZ haven't produced as many as they said they would and were contracted to produce to the detriment of both the EU and the UK and elsewhere.
Don't say too much or else some countries will suspend Pfizer vaccines for safety concerns.
The UK are waiting for the orders they placed with AZ too?
Jesus fecking Christ. This thread is hitting new depths today.
Yes. Unfortunately scaling up the manufacturing of billions of vaccines is hard and takes time. But Boris Johnson isn’t threatening to sue the company and demanding AZ send him European vaccines to make up for the 50% Q1 shortfall.
May be the first time I’ve ever used Boris in a positive light. What a thread this is becoming
Is AZ genuinely Anglo-Swedish or is it essentially British with a Swedish fig leaf? If the former, it seems a strange choice for a UK-EU slanging match.
This thread is a toxic mess right now. There's no grand conspiracy from either the UK or the EU. There are supply issues with AZ largely because of an unpredictable supply process (I don't think the mRNA vaccines have the same production issues) which leads to peaks and troughs in supply. AZ set themselves up to supply the UK largely from the UK, and the EU largely from the EU. The EU production site has seemingly had more issues than the UK site. Again, unpredictable process. It sucks for EU countries, but they're also sitting on stockpiles in a few countries so they can't put that all on AZ. The UK have their own upcoming supply issues - we've just been through a dip in supply, it's no surprise that there's another one coming, the vaccine programme so far has basically been a big success in digging the UK out of what was a horrendous situation in January, so even with the slowdown the UK is in good shape.
In the meantime, the rest of the world is looking on enviously at the US, EU and the UK, with their plans to vaccinate everyone in a few months while healthcare workers in other countries are still waiting.
In the meantime, the rest of the world is looking on enviously at the US, EU and the UK, with their plans to vaccinate everyone in a few months while healthcare workers in other countries are still waiting.
I agree, it all started with some UK posters slagging off the EU and todays row started because van der Leyen said we want to be supplied as well not one way traffic.
Yes it is AZ's fault for the lack of supply.
Then Raab sticks his oar in.
Had the EU procured from Pfizer and Moderna and the UK from AZ, it would have been a different story.
The UK government saying they are not allowing AZ to be shipped until the UK have all their vaccines doesn't convince me the UK government is innocent in all this or unconnected.
Some EU countries and some non-EU countries have suspended rollout of the little AZ vaccine they have until some more data is available but is expected to be just a few days.
It is quite arrogant to think that we and other nations are suspending the use of AZ due to political reasons. And to think we would not use the vaccine but play political games? So stupid. The "war" between EU and Uk in here is equally stupid. I am for one not angry at UK. This is all down to the companies delivering. And in Norway, the experts seems to be leaning to the vaccines causing the problems btw. A rare condition, but we had many young peoples futures destroyed by the swine flu vaccine so it is completely reasonable to investigate and suspend the vaccine until one can be safe.
It’s a strange one. It is kind of a perfect storm.
Starting off with Brexit. Then a vaccine called “the Oxford vaccine”. With the UK going (almost) all in as it’s main vaccine. Then the less than ideal clinical data which was interpreted less favourably in Europe than in the UK. Followed by a license being granted in the UK much earlier than the EU. Throw in the bickering over supply and the EU’s shoddy procurement tactics. And now the pause.
Individually, none of those events would be a cause for an international incident. Combine them and here we are.
I was not being serious.....
Seems like it.
I know. But this is usually a fairly serious thread. Where people come to talk science. So I don’t think posts like that are very helpful.
Agreed.
My comment was primarily to highlight the way this type of issue becomes so highly polarised.
I am no champion of AZ. But it is understandable that at this still very early stage of volume production, deliveries can fluctuate for a wide range of reasons. That is why they have multiple production facilities.
I apologise for my less than serious post.