@MarionoiraM
What I find galling is this attitude of "Things are looking up for us, and the rest of the world and most especially the EU can go to shit". And the whole of the EU is not responsible for the statements of single politicians.
Yes, the UK was the first to approve a vaccine and is now ahead of other countries when it comes to the number of people vaccinated already. That's certainly a positive development, but it doesn't mean they are the only ones entitled to the vaccine.
AstraZeneca is expected to be approved for use in the EU next week (I would be very surprised if it wasn't), so some countries strategy is heavily based on that. However, the company is now saying it will deliver less than 40% of the doses ordered by the EU for the first quarter - but the UK supply won't be affected, so they can go on vaccinating even the less vulnerable?
That doesn't sit right with me - and nor does the attitude that the EU doesn't deserve the vaccine it ordered. Of course there is no moral obligation to help the EU like there is with developing countries who can't afford the vaccine. However, there is a legal obligation to fulfill the contract for the delivery of a certain number of doses (without, as a PP suggested, using the vaccine as a bargaining chip). I do concede another poster's point though that I don't know how much influence the government actually has in that.
WHO have said that it is an issue that there is vaccine inequality and some countries have far more of it than others. They have been warning of the likely problem for some time.
I don't approve of the UK using vaccine as a bargining chip, but it is my suspicion that it is something that could well happen. The UK government have said that they want to tie trade to diplomatic and foreign influence. I'd be surprised if it didn't happen tbh. The whole mentality of Brexit is precisely to put 'Britain (F)first'.
That said I don't think its that simple either.
The UK taking the gamble and making the jump to start vaccination first was always a risk but I do think also based on awareness that early on, first come was likely to be first served because these companies were unlikely (unable) to want to store large quantities themselves and if you've not approved a vaccine, some governments are going to be more hesitant and unwilling than others to want to pay for, ship and store stockpiles themselves with no guarentee you are going to use it. There seems to be an expectation by the EU that Pfizer and Oxford should have kept warehouses full of vaccine just for them rather than shipping to where it was already in use - something equally morally questionable if there is no guarentee that they would approve and you had other countries screaming out for it in desparation. Is it justifiable for the UK to have even larger shortages with the EU not having approved with Astra Zeneca sat there with millions of vaccination in a warehouse for months? Remember that more cases = greater chance of mutation, so from an international point of view you want to be vaccinating as many people as possible straight away rather than have billions of vaccines in a warehouse too...
If it is the case and the UK did risk the population being guinea pigs (which I don't think its the case fwiw - I think there was reasonable scientific basis and confidence in the decision) that could have massively backfired and that was the potential payoff. What would people in the UK and EU be saying now if that had panned out badly (it still could be)?
There are clearly some political decisions in not approving (and taking delivery of) vaccines earlier that the US and EU are going to have to take ownership of in various ways.
The other problem for the UK is that we might vaccine our population but we won't be able to go anywhere so borders will remain closed for sometime so its only a domestic solution. Its not in our interests in the long term to hoard vaccine.
And there is the risk of vaccinating people only for a new varient to pop up and have resistance so we have to start all over again which other countries may not have to do.
On top of that, I do think it is worth stressing that the UK does have one of the biggest problems in the world atm though. Our hospitals are under particular strain (in part because we have lower numbers of hospital beds anyway) and precisely because we have this new varient. Especially if the new varient is more deadly.
NO ONE wants another mutation from the UK varient in particular to one which is resistant to Oxford/Astrazeneca.
This does mean there is a compelling case for the EU for the UK to get on top of the new varient as quickly as possible, because this is of benefit to them too in the long run simply because if we don't its likely that at some point it will spread to the EU simply because of our close distance (I note the news this morning that NZ has just had a first new case in a woman who had come from Europe, isolated for two weeks as required and had two negative tests who developed symptoms two days later and then tested positive).
I do think that vaccine inequality is an issue, but with regard to the EU I think there are other things that should be considered here too. Its not as simple black and white issue as it at first appears to be.