Aibu to think that actually we should let the EU keep more vaccines that would have been sent here given their low vaccination rate and our high one.

[Kendodd]

Firstly, the EU have majorly fucked up vaccine deployment, there's no getting around that and no excuse.
But, if people are dying because of a vaccine shortage and vaccine is being sent to us to put into the arms of people very unlikely to die then the vaccine should be rerouted. A few caveats to this, that vaccine should be in people's arms (especially vulnerable people) as fast as possible and not still in shelves. Apparently the US has hundreds of thousands of doses of the AZ vaccine in storage unapproved when it could already be in arms somewhere else in the world.
I also wish the rest of the world would follow our example and delay the second dose to get more people protected. I think the (brilliant) tactic has been overlooked internationally.
This is a global issue and we should take a global view.
So iabu we should get the vaccine we ordered.
Or ianbu they need it more so should deploy it there.

@tttigress

I think we should vaccinate all the over 50s and ppl with co-morbidities then give to the EU. The virus is basically only dangerous for older people and people with co morbidities.

There have been many cases of under 50s dying and of long COVID. Rare but they do happen.

This will be an unpopular opinion judging by the 80% who think you are unreasonable but ...
This is a sneaky virus. When plasma was injected into an immune compromised patient with covid, the virus mutated twice within the same patient: www.openaccessgovernment.org/convalescent-plasma/103112/#:~:text=On%20Friday%2C%20scientists%20at%20Cambridge,a%20long%20period%20of%20time.

There is every reason to believe, the more people we vaccinate, the more likely we are to be dealing with variants for years and years. Much like we do with the flu - vaccinate the defenseless but leave everyone else to their own immune systems.

I'd have a lot more sympathy for the EU if they'd actually used all their current stock. Looks like they have only managed to use around 50% of their current stock. Once they've used all of that then they can argue over getting more!

@LoadsOfTrouble

Oh man....

As I've had reason to explain before, the EU has not fucked up vaccine deployment because that was never the EU's task. Vaccine deployment is organized by the individual member states, which contrary to what too many UK citizens appear to believe remain independent.

If the EU has fucked up anything, it is procurement, not deployment. And it is rather disingenuous for the UK to snivel at that since it has been the prime beneficiary of the EU's vaccine exports. If the EU has made a mistake here, it was to allow Pharma companies to export vaccines rather than keep them 'for its own people' as many commentators on here would have it.

Honestly, inform yourself before you start passing judgment.

It was my understanding that they weren't operating as individual countries and were asked to band together as one for the vaccination procedure. Now things have gone bad they are now trying to get their own contracts.

The EU are not exporting vaccinations to us, the company who happen to be in the EU are exporting vaccinations not the EU, so they have no rights to block anything. Our contract with AZ has nothing to do with the EU and visa versus.

@sashagabadon

I agree to a certain extent but feel the EU have gone about it all in such an outwardly agressive bullying way it’s a harder sell. All the trashing of the AZ vaccine is really hard to explain away or defend. They shouldn’t have lashed out like they did causing such ill will. Prior to that moment we were all going along happily. But I accept the argument that europe needs vaccinating too and it’s citizens shouldn’t suffer for the leaders incompetence and arrogance. I find the whole EU reaction quite unbelievable considering AZ is selling vaccine at cost. A big mistake for AZ to agree to with hindsight.

We suffered because of our leader's incompetence, we have a much higher death rate than those other countries. Did they help us?

They dragged their heels and are now throwing a tantrum over their own failings. You don’t turn up late to a party and demand someone else’s cake!

The EU dragged their. Heels and wanted it cheap, they are paying less per jab than we are.
We went higher and faster and enabled production to kick off along with the US contract. This is why the US has a stockpile ready and waiting, they paid high for the first batch.

For me personally I have asthma, but my gp followed the revised guidance on eligibility V strictly and only put people who had had a hospital admission for asthma in the last 12 months, whereas I have consistently since I was 2 required oral steroids whenever I have respiratory infections. I definitely believe I am vulnerable and know plenty of people in other health authorities appear to have been selected despite much milder asthma or even just mild asthma in childhood. Quite selfishly I am scared, my ds is back in school and rates that were suppressed a week ago have jumped back up to over 100 per 100,000. I want my vaccination quite frankly and the eu have dragged heals, quibbled over cost, played games, threatened, rubbished the az vaccine, created fear in their own population and are now threatening to destroy supply chains to force private companies to sell them vaccines prepared under other contracts with other countries.

We have a worse death rate, have been in lockdown since Christmas while many eu countries are only looking at new lockdowns in the 3rd wave now.

I agree to a certain extent but feel the EU have gone about it all in such an outwardly agressive bullying way it’s a harder sell. All the trashing of the AZ vaccine is really hard to explain away or defend. They shouldn’t have lashed out like they did causing such ill will. Prior to that moment we were all going along happily.

Were we all going along happily? Your PM is refusing to apply the full terms of the NI agreement, an agreement that he signed and an agreement that is international law. Your government has proved itself to be untrustworthy. We weren't going along happily, the UK was proving itself to be untrustworthy and then act in surprise when the EU views them with suspision.

AZ overestimated it's capacity by millions, they released trial results that said the efficiency rate was either 62 or 90% depending on dosage but it was the US authorities that revealed the higher efficiency rate only applied to a small sample of under 55s. They didn't disclose straight away that the more efficacious dosage combination was the unplanned result of production delays. That lack of transparancy shook peoples confidence in AZ so much that the stock price fell. The US FDA learned from the media that AZ were temporarily halting their trials after a participant fell ill, they, the biggest investors in the vaccine being kept in the dark. And then people wonder why the EU and the US are skeptical of the vaccine when there was no transparency even between AZ and their biggest investors?

People with their fingers in their ears may think that everyone was skipping along happily until the EU came along and ruined it but that is not the case at all.

Do Eu citizens bother about this vaccine after the last few weeks events ? As most of them prefer pfizer ! Should we give up the Pfizer instead ?
I say this as a Spanish person whose middle 60s parents haven’t been vaccinated. Before my British dh loses his jab over my parents I think Germany has many in stock unused that could be used for my parents

We suffered because of our leader's incompetence, we have a much higher death rate than those other countries. Did they help us?
How could they have helped us?

We are in a position now were the roles are reversed, difference is, we can help them.

Wouldn't it make more sense to help countries who don't have vaccine supplies that they aren't using?

@JamesAnderson

Do you think they would share if the situation was reversed?

Or do you think they would say tough shit mate, you left the EU and chose to go it alone, you get on with it?

Once you've decided the answer to this scenario you've got the answer for the current situation

This. They slag off the AZ vaccine, refuse to use it then complain when they can't get any. Any remainers still bleating about leaving the EU after seeing the absolute farce this pandemic has created in Europe should go and live there.

@ClearMountain

They have about 40m vaccines sitting in the fridge and nobody wants them because of their smear campaign against AZ. Why do they want more when they haven’t even used the ones they’ve got? It’s a bit “dog in the manger”!

Exactly.

Our death rate is falling fast though and theirs is rising, they're our neighbours, we're got to help them

People are making this ethical dilemma but it’s not. EU countries can go to stricter lockdowns until larger proportion of their population is vaccinated. It will slow down rates significantly. Their vaccination program is moving slowly but it’s moving. But EU countries don’t want to introduce more restrictions because it would have economic consequences. So why should we be sitting in lockdown instead and sending the vaccines we ordered and payed for to them ?

I voted to leave but I agree that as we don't live in a vacuum, we should forward them some doses (at cost) because their failure to get their act together will affect the UK too. I'd only send it to countries who need it though, if they've large amounts sitting in store then they can use those first.

I do have a condition though. I want UvdL, Macron and anyone else who has made threats to ask nicely for the doses. In fact I'd go further - they need to issue a grovelling apology for their threatening behaviour and bullying tactics. Delivered while on their knees.

We did invest about 7 times more than the EU in getting to this point. As a U.K. taxpayer, I would want our government to be compensated for this - it's a bit much to expect us to give the EU aid really, particularly given we know that they would just say "it's just a consequence of Brexit" if it were the other way around.

Also, for those who think the EU would have shared, these are the countries that banned exports on PPE when we were desperate - France seized a whole lot of PPE that we had paid for in a factory in France. That is why Hancock decided to have a U.K. production site in the first place....

euobserver.com/coronavirus/151334

Some interesting facts and perspectives in there!

41.5 million doses of vaccines have been exported to 33 countries from EU member states, while 70 million doses have been delivered to EU countries - which administered 52 million, he said.

So, 11.5 million doses

10 million - UK
31.1 - elsewhere
70 million across EU
18 million not yet used

And they are irked with the UK!?!?

And a serious mistatement/misunderstanding about deliveries

Sandra Gallina, the senior commission official who negotiated the vaccine contracts, told MEPs on Tuesday that the real problem in the first quarter for vaccine deliveries stemmed from AstraZeneca not delivering what it has promised.

"We were expecting deliveries in the hundreds [of millions] and we are not even getting a quarter of such deliveries," she said, adding that the failure to deliver hit particularly hard since AstraZeneca promised to deliver in the first two quarters 300 million jabs.

First 2 quarters and the first isn't over yet!

A short memory and lack of acknowledgement that the UK helped set up supply, factories and has experts out helping to sort out the issues that every manufacturer and every new faclity has had!

I have no idea why this is still rumbling on. European heads need to ignore the EU, as they can because the EU never had automatic control of medicines during a pandemic, and deal with AZ/UK/US/ everyone else, separately... or set up a Pandemic Bloc and get this sorted, today! Maybe ask Kate "she's a Tory wife this is croneyism, illegal and must be stopped" Bingham to help!

On that, did Maugham ever apologise for this?

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/nov/16/covid-19-contracts-cronyism-government-court

@Kendodd

We suffered because of our leader's incompetence, we have a much higher death rate than those other countries. Did they help us? How could they have helped us?

We are in a position now were the roles are reversed, difference is, we can help them.

As someone else said, sending PPA and resources. They blocked these things being sent to us.

Tough shit, we approved it for use and ordered it months before they bothered to pull their finger out of their arseholes and sort that out, they were quibbling over the price of an "at cost" vaccine while their citizens died and now to save face and try and deflect that, they're trying to pin the blame on the "greedy UK". They're sitting on stockpiles of the stuff, all the while flip flopping about it's efficiency and safety, undermining the perception of vaccines on the whole.

How's that French developed vaccine turned out by the way, you know, the one they abandoned at the start of this year?

And, stop disingenuously touting the line about the "EU exported loads of vaccines to the UK....", Ursala isn't magnanimously and altruistically pushing loads of vaccines out of the back of a cargo plane over the British Isles so that it can float down on a parachute to save our souls, we're importing vaccines we've paid a pretty penny for; from a company that happens to produce them in a different European nation, that's all.

Fuck 'em.

And then they, again, accuse AZ of lying and sent the police in to check. I imagine they are really confused that they don't have a good relationship with them!

amp.theguardian.com/world/2021/mar/24/astrazeneca-dismisses-claim-29m-vaccine-doses-in-italy-were-bound-for-uk

Fuck 'em.

I'm really shocked at the lack of compassion. About 3,000 people in the EU died from covid yesterday, some posters seem to be positively celebrating this.

No. They started it all by dissing the AZ vaccine saying it was no good. And the AZ vaccine is non profit making. But they still weren't satisfied. Typical EU.

@Kendodd

Fuck 'em.

I'm really shocked at the lack of compassion. About 3,000 people in the EU died from covid yesterday, some posters seem to be positively celebrating this.

We need to ensure that second doses and under 40s who want a jab can get a jab too. We can't risk missing the 12 week timeframe.

Why would we share with the EU when third world countries probably need jabs more because jabs are going to rich countries ? Once there is excess, sharing with Ireland to help protect Northern Ireland may make sense.