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??

@sashagabadon

Just listening to Times radio and delay in AZ is according to AZ nothing to do with the price. Everyone is charged cost price. It is because the EU signed the contract 3 months after the U.K. and so has not allowed time to iron out the supply issues ( that the U.K. had too, just had time to sort them)

Yes that is right. There was talk about this last week.

The EU should be helping the manufacturer with setting up and sourcing anything they need. Instead they have taken too long to approve the vaccine, deal with contractual stuff and other time wasting.

Lesson for AZ too maybe, no good deed goes unpunished! Lesson not to make your vaccine so cheap that countries threaten to sue you for not supplying it quickly enough to them
Hopefully other vaccines will come on line soon and take the pressure off AZ and Pfizer too. I remember an interview with the Biontech couple. They were very pleased with other vaccines getting approval which may seem counterintuitive but we can see now that the more vaccines the better. Takes political pressure off all the successful pharma companies for this sort of reason.

So why did a German paper make false accusations about the AZ vaccine, which has come from a German government source?

Canada could impacted by any introduction of export controls by the EU 👇

www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/canada-s-vaccine-deliveries-further-threatened-as-europe-mulls-export-controls-1.5282454

Interestingly just watching the local news and they say that UK supplies are low and as a result of other areas being behind the NW for vaccinating the priority groups, they are cutting the number of vaccines the NW are getting next week from 300,000 to 200,000. It certainly shows that fantasies of being able to vaccinate everyone in just a few weeks are just that. Fantasies. And this is going to be a longer slog than anyone would like.

I think there's a lot of vaccine in the pipeline. Ok things go wrong in production so there may be bumps. But the overall direction is positive.

@RedToothBrush

Interestingly just watching the local news and they say that UK supplies are low and as a result of other areas being behind the NW for vaccinating the priority groups, they are cutting the number of vaccines the NW are getting next week from 300,000 to 200,000. It certainly shows that fantasies of being able to vaccinate everyone in just a few weeks are just that. Fantasies. And this is going to be a longer slog than anyone would like.

1. When did they ever say they were going to vaccinate ‘everyone’ in a few weeks?
2. If you are talking about gropis 1-4 it will be done by mid Feb. Why is this a fantasy?

I’ve just read this on the Guardian

“Reuters reported on Tuesday that officials had requested that AstraZeneca divert doses from the UK to EU member states to make up on the shortfall.”

Can the EU do this legally even though they haven’t even approved the vaccine yet?

Pretty happy with the vaccine rollout so far for elderly and cev.

I have always thought (based on nothing much) that our government are super determined to do this right to have a "look how great we are out of the EU!" moment. Probably just me though!

@RedToothBrush

Interestingly just watching the local news and they say that UK supplies are low and as a result of other areas being behind the NW for vaccinating the priority groups, they are cutting the number of vaccines the NW are getting next week from 300,000 to 200,000. It certainly shows that fantasies of being able to vaccinate everyone in just a few weeks are just that. Fantasies. And this is going to be a longer slog than anyone would like.

Have you actually looked at the numbers you are typing for one area alone.

We have a problem with the rebottling and safety checking slowing everything down. That is why they talk about slumps and bumps in the system. The oxford manufacturers and the government have stated this on numerous occasions.

Hancock also said last week that the vaccine supplies would be slowed down in areas that have over achieved. Then extra will be sent to low achieving areas.

This is in order to address any post code lottery situation. Especially as the media started spouting rubbish.

Do you really think we have no supplies already and that instantly this all will hit us. I suggest your local news is speculating because events of the last 24 hrs.

We will no doubt be hit by the latest saga but not quite yet. Definitely will be fine for the 15th February. May have to slow down for the rest of list.

Hopefully j&j will be with us in the spring or another alternative. Also the oxford and Pfizer manufacturing issues will get sorted by then.

Lesson for AZ too maybe, no good deed goes unpunished! Lesson not to make your vaccine so cheap that countries threaten to sue you for not supplying it quickly enough to them

The subject of morality has come up quite a lot on this thread. Well, if the EU seriously go ahead and sue a company that is making a vaccine to save people’s lives on a not for profit basis, morally that is pretty unforgivable.

Would you like me to link to them?

@RedToothBrush sure!

It certainly shows that fantasies of being able to vaccinate everyone in just a few weeks are just that.

@RedToothBrush What an odd thing to say. When has anyone ever believed we could vaccinate everyone in just a few weeks?

I have always thought (based on nothing much) that our government are super determined to do this right to have a "look how great we are out of the EU!" moment. Probably just me though!

Well if that was the intention, they’ve certainly done what they set out to do so far!

@Dongdingdong

I have always thought (based on nothing much) that our government are super determined to do this right to have a "look how great we are out of the EU!" moment. Probably just me though!

Well if that was the intention, they’ve certainly done what they set out to do so far!

I doubt when the decisions were being made, that thought crossed anyone's mind.

I would normally defend the EU to the hilt but so far, they have fucked up the vaccine procurement.

I also think the UK has made damn sure they got the lion's share of the AZ vaccine, so much for no vaccine nationalism, Mr Hancock!!!
Just as France made sure they got more Sanofi vaccine... someone had to lose.

Ive said elsewhere i expect we will be fine for groups 1 to 4 but i think will will be maybe a week or two behind schedule. Im not worried about supply before then tbh. Think its in the pipeline.

Then i expect more problems with supply. I think we will hit a bit a crunch in March. If im right im worried we arent fully psychologically prepared for it. I fear March / April will be harder than expected. I sincerely hope I'm wrong on this. This is also when second jabs start, so you get something of a bottleneck in the system. Theres lots of people in groups 5 to 8 who will be disappointed and have to wait longer than they thought.

The government has built up expectations and said they may even be able to do everyone by the end of the summer. Not helped by bloody Blair saying we could do everyone in a couple of weeks if we really wanted to. AZ is saying it can supply 2 million doses a week. Considering the Pfizer issues, until we get other additional vaccines up and running in the uk thats a problem for time scales.

I am therefore more cautious in what i think will happen. I think it will cause some anger and unrest if we hit problems because people are frustrated. And desperate.

Im worried. So far things have gone well and i hope it continues. Until we have a couple more bits of really good news on the roll out i'll procede with caution tbh.

I would normally defend the EU to the hilt but so far, they have fucked up the vaccine procurement.

I also think the UK has made damn sure they got the lion's share of the AZ vaccine, so much for no vaccine nationalism, Mr Hancock!!!
Just as France made sure they got more Sanofi vaccine... someone had to lose.

Yes. It was a race which has had nationalistic lines. And there has to be fallout from it.

How? How are EU citizens going to punish the EU institution for its monumental vaccine fuck up?

Excellent point which gets to the heart of Brexit, surely.

Not helped by bloody Blair saying we could do everyone in a couple of weeks if we really wanted to.
Ha. Did he really? Because lack of desire is holding us back.

In fairness, he was the first politician raising the point publicly about delaying the second dose. I think I was critical, saying we should wait for MHRA and JCVI as they would decide what dosing regime was appropriate, then funnily enough that's exactly what the recommendation was. On the off chance he has some special knowledge, if he could hand that plan over to JCVI that would be awesome.

To be fair if sanofi / GSK had kept to their own anticipated schedule, the EU wouldn’t be in this situation as they would have plentiful supplies coming from them instead . That’s the gamble the EU took under pressure from Macron by all accounts. It might have paid off but didn’t, that’s not really AZ’s or the U.K.‘S fault.
They also could have ordered more Pfizer back n the summer after the initial positive results but again didn’t ( according to an article I read in de speigel also under pressure from macron who wanted Sanofi treated equally)

@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?

Is it just me or has the Irish media been very quiet about all of this, and about the massive difference in vaccine progress in NI vs Republic?

@RedToothBrush

Ive said elsewhere i expect we will be fine for groups 1 to 4 but i think will will be maybe a week or two behind schedule. Im not worried about supply before then tbh. Think its in the pipeline.

Then i expect more problems with supply. I think we will hit a bit a crunch in March. If im right im worried we arent fully psychologically prepared for it. I fear March / April will be harder than expected. I sincerely hope I'm wrong on this. This is also when second jabs start, so you get something of a bottleneck in the system. Theres lots of people in groups 5 to 8 who will be disappointed and have to wait longer than they thought.

The government has built up expectations and said they may even be able to do everyone by the end of the summer. Not helped by bloody Blair saying we could do everyone in a couple of weeks if we really wanted to. AZ is saying it can supply 2 million doses a week. Considering the Pfizer issues, until we get other additional vaccines up and running in the uk thats a problem for time scales.

I am therefore more cautious in what i think will happen. I think it will cause some anger and unrest if we hit problems because people are frustrated. And desperate.

Im worried. So far things have gone well and i hope it continues. Until we have a couple more bits of really good news on the roll out i'll procede with caution tbh.

I agree about a March crunch. On the positive side Johnson & Johnson are close to reporting what are expected to be decent results, so they’ll likely join the supply chain in H1.

Sir John Bell said the Johnson and Johnson one shot vaccine could be here by next month. They announce their data next week, so fingers crossed. Even if it is a little later than expected it the initial order of 13 million would be a good boost for phase 2.

X post, sorry

Sanofi/GSK was only signed at the end of July, so it's not a given that the EU could have been ready in time. It depends what raw materials are missing. If it's vials for example (I use it as a real example because it was obvious last year that there's a global vial shortage), then that would affect any vaccine being created in the EU.

The AZ partner factory issue is unfortunate but could have happened to any supplier; Pfizer had early hiccups too with cold chain issues etc. Most reasonable customers with the words "best estimate" in the contract have to accept that delivery might get a few weeks of unfortunate delay. Instead the EU has created an ugly public media war when the contract is not yet in a final state (EMA approval), it looks actually rather crazy if they want to have any vaccines delivered under this contract.

Even before vaccines Pfizer and AZ vaccines were approved by the UK it was being reported that there were problems with anticipated delivery and i'm sure the UK is just as disappointed as the EU is that it can't vaccinate as quickly as it thought it would be able to.

UK reaction has been to accept that delays have happened and extend time between doses.

EU reaction has been to say it's unacceptable and suggest UK supply of AZ vaccine is diverted to them.

I wonder if they're also suggesting that Pfizer diverts some of its USA supply to make up the EU Pfizer shortfall?