Germany saying AZ vaccine only 8% effective in over 65s *MNHQ noting that this story has been widely debunked*

[dbIdb]

What fresh hell is this.

Why, why, why was the Oxford trial/data reporting so sloppy?

How has it come to this??

I vaguely remember that months ago it was said that individual countries were allowed to do their own thing vaccine wise but that most (all?) chose to collaborate via the EU. Maybe that is now changing and countries are going their own way quite legally?

@feelingquitehopeful

the fact the UK are now implementing quarantine hotels (with good reason) will kill the travel sector in southern Europe this year and possibly longer may have also something to do with it.

I think you are vastly overestimating the importance of the UK for the EU. Some places that were frequented mainly by British tourists might be hit hard by this, but not having tourists from a single country will not kill the travel sector in several southern European countries when part of the shortfall will be made up by Europeans not going to the UK but choosing new destinations in the EU.

The mysterious story circulating emanating from a German newspaper suggesting low Ox-AZ efficacy in the elderly turns out to have been someone misunderstanding that the proportion of elderly people in the study is not the same thing as the efficacy of the vaccine in that group

Oh dear, how embarrassing.

It is a gift for brexiteers for sure, either way.

Indeed!

I did not realise Germany had gone ahead with their own, oooo scandalous.

It seems that the EU decided to procure centrally following an almighty scrum and competition between EU countries for the swine flu vaccine back whenever so it seemed a rational response was to work together instead as a large bloc but I think this made the vaccine procurement team complacent or at least not see the urgency as they felt there was no competition between them (but failed to identify the competition with the rest of the world) they could demand lower prices and more liabilities on the manufacturer plus it still had to get each countries buy in slowing everything down.
Goes to show once again whatever you do you still create new problems, just different ones.
Also lesson number 2, don’t try and screw the supplier to the lowest possible price for a commodity that the whole world wants as that does not really incentivise the supplier in rushing your order through. I learnt that on dragons den. If you want a dragon to work hard for your business give them a decent share of your business to make it worth their while!

Further up the thread, much earlier today, a mumsnetter noticed the numbers were the same (% of over 65s in the study and efficacy in this age group) guessed it might be confusion of the 8%s. I am in awe of this place!

@FatCatThinCat

Why shouldn't the EU be angry about this? AZ have taken our money but aren't supplying the goods. Why shouldn't the EU question them about where the vaccines we've paid for have gone? Contrary to what many in the UK believe, the EU is accountable to us, the citizens of the EU.

The EU are yet to licence AZ and have refused to allow Ireland to begin importing it in advance of it being licenced.

So the answer to, 'where have your vaccines gone?' is that the EU refused to let countries order them from the manufacturers.

(Source: www.dublinlive.ie/news/health/covid19-vaccine-oxford-ireland-brexit-19672792)

[quote MarionoiraM]@feelingquitehopeful

the fact the UK are now implementing quarantine hotels (with good reason) will kill the travel sector in southern Europe this year and possibly longer may have also something to do with it.

I think you are vastly overestimating the importance of the UK for the EU. Some places that were frequented mainly by British tourists might be hit hard by this, but not having tourists from a single country will not kill the travel sector in several southern European countries when part of the shortfall will be made up by Europeans not going to the UK but choosing new destinations in the EU.[/quote]
How many Europeans go to Britain on summer holidays? Not that many I would think.

By contrast, millions of Brits go on sunshine holidays to countries like Spain, Greece and Portugal. Brits are the number one source of tourists in Spain. So while it's true that no country is entirely dependent on British tourists, they are extremely important to many destinations.

England incredibly expensive to visit, dodgy weather.

EU would be in a very dangerous spot to be seen to be collectively stopping countries from getting vaccines.

That's when the real riots would start!
Imagine us, having the Oxford jab made and ready to go but stuck in warehouses... Because the eu hadn't sanctioned it or said we were allow to use it!

Visitors from the EU spent about £10b and we spent about £37b in the EU.

I think the issue is that the money we spend, like you say, isn't evenly spread and some countries will struggle more than others.

www.finder.com/uk/travel-money-statistics

www.statista.com/topics/4895/brexit-and-the-eu-uk-travel-industry/#dossierSummary

@Waspnest

I vaguely remember that months ago it was said that individual countries were allowed to do their own thing vaccine wise but that most (all?) chose to collaborate via the EU. Maybe that is now changing and countries are going their own way quite legally?

They are legally able to do their own thing.

Hungary has bought lots of Russian vaccine.

The idea about central purchasing is it was supposed to stop eu countries competing against each other for supplies and to increase bargaining and purchasing power. It also helped smaller, less rich countries fall behind or become no go zones within the eu.

Nice in principle.

In practise has proved a bit of a political disaster. And in response to slow EU roll out, countries are resorting to their own plans in addition to the EU one.

Its unsurprising. They are under pressure from public opinion at home and a sense that the EU has failed.

Reality is its hard to calculate winners and losers in vaccination success at this point. But people are impatient.

That's really low.

I'm so disappointed in how the EU are handling this.

@CrumbsThatsQuick

Further up the thread, much earlier today, a mumsnetter noticed the numbers were the same (% of over 65s in the study and efficacy in this age group) guessed it might be confusion of the 8%s. I am in awe of this place!

Mn fact check better than newspapers and politicians. Surely not.

@Truelymadlydeeplysomeonesmum yes I think now it is clear why Westminster were furious when Sturgeon started ‘over communicating’ on vaccines supplies, amounts and where they were being produced/stored. But that would ha e been driven by her drive to be seen as the ‘honest’ and ‘open’ politician in her independence campaign. Slight irony there with the latest Salmond allegations. Never a dull moment.

[quote Blessex]@Truelymadlydeeplysomeonesmum yes I think now it is clear why Westminster were furious when Sturgeon started ‘over communicating’ on vaccines supplies, amounts and where they were being produced/stored. But that would ha e been driven by her drive to be seen as the ‘honest’ and ‘open’ politician in her independence campaign. Slight irony there with the latest Salmond allegations. Never a dull moment.[/quote]
That actually really flags up to me Sturgeon does not think globally or strategically. It’s a really naive and stupid thing to do. Even I can understand the reasons for discretion not to mention security issues.

I remember getting a lot of stick for suggesting a wait and see for how many U.K. vaccines would be done v EU last year

Wonder where that poster is now

This must all be rather confusing for the “EU can do no wrong” brigade on MN!

@sashagabadon she doesn’t think globally or strategically because she has a laser sharp focus on one thing and one thing only. She is the kind of person who is the worst nightmare colleague to work alongside.

Could you imagine now if Scotland were part of the EU watching the vaccination rollout. Surely it is better for us to stay together. I really don’t want the Union to break apart. Hopefully this mess up by the EU is a bit of an eye opener. If there is anything in the slightest bit good to come out of this whole mess.

Yes she really is sheltered from geopolitics and global thinking isn’t she? But yet she wants to run an independent country. Westminster does this thinking for her atm and she doesn’t even realise it.

@Dongdingdong

I remember getting a lot of stick for suggesting a wait and see for how many U.K. vaccines would be done v EU last year

Wonder where that poster is now

This must all be rather confusing for the “EU can do no wrong” brigade on MN!

Who would that be?

I think the EU can do badly on things. I've always said that. I just think they are generally better than the UK government. Not always. There's flaws. I've always said that. I can find posts from 2016 saying this. Would you like me to link to them?

Indeed, I've not defended the EU in the slightest on this one, because the story from the word go looked problematic and I've been keeping a close eye on the vaccine shortage issue in the full knowledge there was going to be political fall out at some point somewhere with it and there will be supply issues.

What is more confusing is how people seem to think there is a 'EU can do no wrong' brigade at all. I take each issue as it comes and look for the true between what both sides are saying, based primary on evidence and the facts as they come out. You know in the tradition of good journalism.

shrugs

I think this story is interesting in how it is coming out and what it exposes on both sides of the channel tbh. Neither is whiter than white on the subject of vaccine protectionism and nationalism.

I have no doubt what so ever if the situation were reversed the UK would be screaming blue murder either. The UK have taken a BIG gamble too; one that may pay off, but its still a high risk strategy to be honest. (One that the situation in the UK realistically was in a position that made it hard not to take too).

We also have no idea who will have a more successful vaccination policy in the long run. Speed looks good initially, but this is a ultimately a marathon and if you are found to have backed the wrong horse in the longer term (eg picked the one which turns out not to work against new variants when others do) then the speed you vaccinate at means jack shit. In that respect there are r&d, testing, planning, production, logistics AND sheer luck which are issues which all important.

Ultimately vaccine hoarding and vaccine nationalist work against all our interests on an international basis. Seeing the fighting (and point scoring) over this when we need really good international cooperation is the most depressing thing of all. It doesn't solve the covid problem any quicker.

Nuanced thinking and stepping away from 'sides' and 'black and white' issues is much more my bag tbh.

www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/26/eu-means-business-covid-vaccine-exports-ursula-von-der-leyen

Seems like the EU is not playing around with this....Ursula Von Der Leyen doubling down!

They aren't likely to back down even if they are wrong or have screwed the pooch...

...they havent got vaccine. They need vaccine.

Badly.

The amount of misinformation, wilful misinterpreting of information, conspiracy theorising and utter fake news on this thread is mind boggling.

The EU legitimately ordered and prepaid a number of vaccine doses from AZ last year. AZ has suddenly announced that they can't deliver the full number... but cannot explain why, and are not giving satisfactory explanations as to what happened to these other doses. They are highly suspected of having sold them to higher bidders (including the UK), despite their existing contractual obligations to the EU.

To prevent this from happening in the future with other vaccines (and thus making a complete mockery of any kind of procurement procedure - if it doesn't matter whether you've bought and paid for something, because somebody else can buy it from under you), they want to be able to have more transparency on where vaccines produced in the EU are being exported to. This should help to bring to light any dodgy dealings, as suspected with the AZ order.

This has got nothing to do with effing tourists travelling to Spain this summer, or even the German media's (now debunked) 8% claim!

Oh dear, it's like a lesson in how not to do supplier management. Why on earth aren't the EU asking what they can do to help speed up the process? At least giving EMA approval to conclude the contract?