To think that the EU have done more to endorse Brexit in the last 2 weeks than the UK managed in nearly 5 years

[Butterflyfluff]

I’ll start by saying I’ve never thought Brexit was in the long term interest of the UK and still don’t

But dear God, the EU’s behaviour over vaccinations and, in particular, the blatant prejudice around the Astra Zeneca vaccine has done more to endorse the UK leaving than anything that has been said in the UK before, during and after the vote

@Lochmorlich
And our vaccination centres are closing for lunch.

I wonder if they are constrained by supplies?

FWIW the main vac centre in our local biggish town and the Vaccinodrome in the sports stadium in our nearest big city are "open" all day, typically 0800 to 1830, in the case of the Vaccinodrome that includes the weekend .

Main problem seems to be demand is such, certainly locally, that it's difficult to get an appointment once you do become eligible, which for me should be shortly........fingers crossed.

I suspect your real beef is that the UK has not fallen flat after brexit, it has not been turned into a lorry park or an outpost, it is actually doing rather well

Unbelievable!
I voted remain because its in the best interests of the UK, i still believe that.
i haven't suddenly become a 3rd columnist, intent on destroying the UK from within, say like Farage for example.
The UK doing great after Brexit will be brilliant, so far the evidence is we won't BUT its a bit too much mixed in with CV to be sure what is causing this.

Your cavalier attitude to the disaster across the channel is heartless, most europe is months away from the level of vaccination the UK has, that means 10s of 1000s of extra deaths, we could help limit that, without effecting our rates but refuse too..... so far no one has put fwd a counter argument because there isn't one.

@jasjas1973

I suspect your real beef is that the UK has not fallen flat after brexit, it has not been turned into a lorry park or an outpost, it is actually doing rather well

Unbelievable!
I voted remain because its in the best interests of the UK, i still believe that.
i haven't suddenly become a 3rd columnist, intent on destroying the UK from within, say like Farage for example.
The UK doing great after Brexit will be brilliant, so far the evidence is we won't BUT its a bit too much mixed in with CV to be sure what is causing this.

Your cavalier attitude to the disaster across the channel is heartless, most europe is months away from the level of vaccination the UK has, that means 10s of 1000s of extra deaths, we could help limit that, without effecting our rates but refuse too..... so far no one has put fwd a counter argument because there isn't one.

Why wouldn’t it effect our death rates?

Did you listen to the briefing last night?

Whitty explained there still will be hospitalisation and deaths in the unvaccinated.

Why do you not have concern over those?

@sashagabadon

It’s interesting to me to see posters deriding the government response for most of 2020, we’re the worst in the world, highest deaths, worst at test and trace ( testing is actually brilliant now and I think this too is helping with reducing cases) now on the attack because we are doing something right and our deaths are dropping and we are slowly making our way down the “worse deaths” table. Doing better than our neighbours (for once) has become a stick to beat us with as we’re now smug and selfish

Long term I think this will be good news for U.K. pharma. Maybe we could look at being a bigger player in the vaccine world ( not as big as India / Us obviously) . It’s obviously a strength here with developing vaccines, running trials, and manufacturing. Great for jobs too in wales , Scotland and north east England. Long term this could be good for us and we can be a big exporter of vaccines to the EU.

Exactly well said

Whitty explained there still will be hospitalisation and deaths in the unvaccinated Whitty also acknowledged there will be hospitalisations and deaths in the vaccinated as he explained for some the vaccine does not work.

The issue we have is the UK's ''vaccinate fast, leave borders open, leave schools unmitigated' is another Johnson gamble. The numbers of covid deaths predicted by SAGE in winter 2021/22 are in a range, but the top of that range is double a bad flu winter.

The government should be doing more to prevent this outcome, for medical, economic and social reasons.

This is all leaving aside the small but high risk of a bad variant episode/outbreak.

Long term this could be good for us and we can be a big exporter of vaccines to the EU.

Everywhere is ramping up production capability now. It is an interesting aim. However, a thousand mile journey begins with the first step. Start gently as one single export would be all that is necessary to break the duck.

Read something along the lines that variants may make the development of new vaccines necessary. By not having global and coordinated responses, this is more likely as if only some countries are protected, the virus mutates in the areas where the populations are not protected. Health security can't just be at a national level in that case.

They (meaning world leaders) are clearly taking variants a lot more seriously. At the start of the pandemic there was a lot of total guff all over threads/social media generally about 'all coronaviruses mutate to become milder' but it appears Covid19 missed this memo.

@beginningoftheend

They (meaning world leaders) are clearly taking variants a lot more seriously. At the start of the pandemic there was a lot of total guff all over threads/social media generally about 'all coronaviruses mutate to become milder' but it appears Covid19 missed this memo.

Latest news out of Israel is that none of the new variants can spread in a vaccinated population.

Latest news out of Israel is that none of the new variants can spread in a vaccinated population.

That’s nice to read on this difficult thread!

Latest news out of Israel is that none of the new variants can spread in a vaccinated population would be very grateful to see data on this as understood the SA variant was an issue for some vaccines?

They need to work together on this issue for sure or we will be chasing our tails for years.

Thing is we are a minnow atm when it comes to vaccines production. My understanding is We produce 2 million doses weekly of AZ currently for the U.K. market. Even if we gave half of these to the EU ( and I don’t think we should) it would be a drop in the ocean for the EU. Not to mention it being a vaccine that many do not even want. We are helping to try and get the EU manufacturing running better so they can supply themselves quicker. If they had started sooner they would be further along with this than they are.
We also trialled almost all the vaccines in use at the moment in the world with U.K. citizens so we definitely played our part there too in speeding this all along.
I really think the U.K. can hold its head high with its contribution to the world during this pandemic. The many NHS medicine trials on U.K. Covid patients too giving evidence of cheap, easily available drugs that the world can use is another example.

And we do export vaccines out of our supply. All the BTO’s for example are practically fully vaccinated. Gibraltar for example. All the adults vaccinated there and they are delighted.
I would also like to see us helping out ROI too. Although they may not need help as will be getting a good supply from April onwards according to my Irish relatives.

Whilst I agree that the UK's production is small, I am curious about how
'we' are helping to get the EU manufacturing running better so they can supply themselves quicker

I think you'd have to get your own house in order first and get UK manufacturing running better so the UK can supply itself. I suppose someone of a similar mind is sitting somewhere in the EU countries thinking they don't think the EU countries should have let the 20 million BioNTech/Pfizer doses leave for the UK who should be able to supply themselves.

That sort of thinking will torpedo a global response.

Increased testing for variants is coming in the UK www.gov.uk/government/news/government-reintroduces-confirmatory-pcr-testing

Cali, I’m just referring to the AZ factories. In the U.K. We had loads of issues that needed ironing out back in 2020 so we can advise on these issues in the EU factories. Learning from our experience. It’s a sensible collaboration surely.
Making vaccines seems very complicated indeed. I’ve heard it referred to as more akin to making sourdough than a bloomer. But times 1000!

What the EU is getting wrong

I just read this, published a couple of days ago.

This is all just teething issues, given not a single scientist believes this will be over any time soon, it is going to take time to set up production sites, and production to the kind of levels we will need globally.

The clamour mainly from the EU is only pressing because of the third wave, the pressure would not be so intense Europe had low numbers of infection.

In time, we will see most countries organising ample production and supply, and hopefully that will better serve the countries that do not have the infrastructure or the reserves to operate their own facilities.

In a few months even the landscape will look very different.It will then be about double mutations and other problems.

The AZ vaccine was a cooperative development - trials supplies being made in Italy
The UK used emergency powers available under EU law to licence clinical use of the Pfizer & AZ vaccine ahead of EMA approval
The EU took an unprecedented decision to attempt to enable all member states access to vaccines on an equitable footing
The UK has always been able to join the joint EU approach, whether in or out. It chose to not.
The EU has been a bit shafted in contractual terms with their dealings with AZ, certainly, and possibly Pfizer - the UK threw more money at them and got, initially, first dibs
The EU have been desperately trying to challenge AZ on contractual terms

This is all very unfortunate. We all benefit from vaccination, however the demand is immense, the production level finite, and the political rhetoric at high stakes - particularly because of Brexit. Brexit has only heightened political tensions in the whole desperate episode - it has added nothing, apart from the mirage of a benefit

The amount of rubbish being reported and sucked up as a Brexit justifier is very thoughtless and depressing, but you carry on

@jasjas1973

That statement wasn’t about blame. It was more to stop us getting too excited and doing what we wanted, but mostly to MPs who were more gung ho and also likely being lobbied by travel industry

Johnson telling the nation that CV currently ravaging europe might "wash up on our shores.... has history shows us" whilst conveniently forgetting that this variant was originally from the UK..... is most definitely seeking to divert blame.

Agree that some tory MPs are affected by lobbying... mostly from former PMs.

The variant most of concern at the moment is the South African one. Currently accounts for 10% of French cases and is harder for vaccines to stop. That didn't originate in the UK.

When Macron's ongoing (since January) refusal to lockdown has been dubbed a "death strategy" by French epidemiologists, there's no diverting of blame necessary.

I’m glad the Dutch are now taking up the newly vacated post of the “awkward” squad in the EU.

But if this ridiculous bandit law had been passed and agreed, that is on them too. To spend weeks wrangling over contracts without delivery in a pandemic is a failure.

Yes we could help them. But let’s get real as to the nature of vaccine diplomacy. What do the EU offer to Britain?

Maybe we will save Macron by supplying vaccine he doesn’t use. Maybe we will have Article 16 triggered by accident. Maybe they will write a law that any trade lawyer knows will get them sued.

Anything but some actual diplomacy, because it’s Britain. What kind of institution does all that and then says, we’ve failed, help us?

lex Quite, it is political manipulation to try and convince the voters in Europe that they are paying into something that delivers - and is better than any other alternative. Then when the EU doesn't deliver and fails rather badly - rather than show some degree of responsibility and accountability they look to deflection.

Do they honestly have so little respect for the citizens of Europe whom were not born yesterday to see through this fog of deflection and misinformation and hold the commission and their own governments responsible?

There is no problem between the UK people and the people of Europe, there never has been. This is all about power, control and politics inside the commission. Not about us.

I can see the Greens in Germany giving Merkel's party a good kicking in the autumn, and we may see the Greens win - with their fresh ideas and energy we may see renewal at long last. We may see genuine new vision and an invigoration of the political classes.

The EU elite is in a stupor of its own making, drunk on the gravy train that runs through the heart of it, lapsed into some kind of coma due to a lack of accountability it has become a lifeless, loveless institution of little use to anyone apart from the bureaucrats feeding from it.
But it doesn't need to stay that way. It urgently needs an overhaul of epic proportions, returning to its roots of trading connections and friendship and less about control and subversion, and with new life and new ideas will come unity, hope and a real future that works hard for its people - it might even become a place Brexit Britain will rejoin if its ethics are cleaned up and it remains a friendly trading bloc, and less like a tyrannical bully. Every country and every state needs to reinvigorate, to replenish at different point, this is so long overdue for the commission and the people relying on its success.

@maddy68

It's interesting as I'm not in the UK. But I read the UK press. This is entirely propeganda to suit the UK government. The EU has given 40%of it's vaccines to other countries. The UK has given nothing if you think that paints the EU in a poor light then then that's up to you this is a global pandemic not a UK one

The UK has mismanahed it from the start. They are still way behind other countries in giving the second vaccination

The EU has given no vaccines away. There has been no charitable gesture. Manufacturers sell things to customers. Unlike in China, this is not controlled by the state.

The UK is not "way behind other countries in giving the second vaccination" at all, the UK has administered more second doses than France, Germany, Poland, Italy, Austria, Ireland, Belgium, Czechia, Portugal among others and is on the verge of overtaking Spain.

In any case, the approach of leaving a longer gap between doses is backed up by the evidence.

For what it's worth (and that's not much, says you), I don't think the UK not allowing any exports of vaccine, or the 20 million Pfizer shots it received and which were manufacture in the EU, are in themselves the reason things are so fraught. I think when things are difficult (and what's more difficult than people ill and dying) things are honed in on and become like a stone in a shoe. Rather like voices on here that British manufactured vaccines shouldn't leave the country, there are probably similar voices saying the same thing about vaccines which are manufactured in the EU. And America first. And India - they are slightly more flexible on need, though.

I don't think export bans are the way to go either. For anyone. I wish warnings of variants developing from mutations in unprotected populations could be disregarded. Unfortunately, I don't know if they can be. There have been issues in SA that some vaccines imported didn't cover against the variant there. At least it may force developed nations (and not just the EU countries) to let vaccines be exported abroad, if nothing else; even if they aren't otherwise inclined to do so.

And the Dutchies aren't awkward. They are pragmatic and have a very open economy. No need to be vindictive or spiteful in wishing trouble on a body which the UK is not a member.

The reference to the awkward squad is the former role that Britain occupied in allowing some pragmatism in the EU. That’s now for the Dutch, a role that we previously shared. I think they’d be okay with my saying that since they have skeptic mentality and more pragmatism than some other EU MS.

150,000 people have died in the UK for a multitude of reasons, some simply due to government incompetence. I don’t want the incompetence of the EU to be gilded on top of that. I am extremely grateful that one aspect of the UK covid response is competent and forward looking. It gives hope and really importantly, something to build on. The UK needs to build and push relationships with pharma as the EU carry on with their overwrought response. We now absolutely know what they are prepared to do to us as a nation state. It’s not funny, or to be brushed over. It’s deadly serious. Ask yourself what might have happened to the UK, your friends, family, had they succeeded in doing this?

Despite all the warm words now being circulated it seems very bitter. It’s really important Britain builds other relationships commercially and diplomatically. The EU is acting badly; even Juncker can recognise that.

And the Dutchies aren't awkward. They are pragmatic and have a very open economy. No need to be vindictive or spiteful in wishing trouble on a body which the UK is not a member

Just to be clear the pp did not mean that the Dutch were awkward at all, just that they are now in the same position the UK were in inside the EU. We don't envy them at all. But yes they are pragmatic and a very sensible nation - one that is not keen on too much bureaucracy and money wasting. The alliance was there when the UK was part of things. Northern Europeans usually have a similar outlook.

It doesn't matter what country the vaccines are produced, we will say again, it is the contracts that count. Everywhere regardless. You don't own what is produced in your country - the company does, and it is not for any nation to stop lawful contracts unduly. India's SI did not have a fixed contract with the UK, so the government was able to appeal to them for vaccines. The EU demanding that all vaccines produced there are acting like China and the nation state, but that is now how things work here, at all.